Ireland boss Andy Farrell backed Sam Prendergast to bounce back from being dropped as he admitted neither of his leading fly-half options were in particularly good form ahead of the Guinness Six Nations.
Prendergast has been left out of the matchday squad for Saturday’s round-three clash away to England following a tough outing in last weekend’s tense 20-13 win over Italy.
Jack Crowley will start at Twickenham after his impressive cameo against the Azzurri, with Ciaran Frawley providing back-up from the bench.
Prendergast, 23, began six of Ireland’s last seven Six Nations fixtures and has been overlooked for a matchday 23 in the championship for the first time.
“Sam’s a fantastic international player,” head coach Farrell told a press conference, according to the Irish Independent.
“He’s on a journey that’s obviously learning like all of us. That will never stop. It’s the same for Ciaran Frawley.
“We’ve talked all along about the four lads (Crowley, Prendergast, Frawley and Harry Byrne) competing against one another and the balance is right for this team this weekend.
“Everyone gets feedback and we talk it through and we use it in the right manner to see where we’re going to go in the not too distant future.
“I think the two lads (Prendergast and Crowley) probably came into camp, I think they’ve probably been in better form.
“I’m not saying they were in bad form, but you see during training which way that you’re going to go through performance.”
Crowley played every minute of Ireland’s triumphant 2024 Six Nations campaign but his only start in the tournament following Prendergast’s Test debut in November of that year came away to Italy last March.
The 26-year-old will partner recalled scrum-half Jamison Gibson-Park as part of five personnel changes, with prop Tadhg Furlong and back-rows Tadhg Beirne and Josh van der Flier also returning.
Asked why he opted for Crowley, Farrell said: “Because of what we’ve seen and how he’s come through and performed and playing confidently.
“You back what you see and all of that.
“I suppose sometimes you see people come from the back, have nothing to lose and then just rip in.
“And we’ve not just seen that with Jack, we’ve seen it with James Ryan – not selected to start in the first game, came on against France (a 36-14 loss) and had a storming game and has continued that.
“I saw that with James as well with the (British and Irish) Lions, when he was behind the eight ball there with a quad injury and he was chasing his tail to try and get into the squad and played his best rugby within that tour.
“That’s because people are able to sit back a bit, make sense of it and rip into the performance. I think you saw that with Jack’s performance last week.”
Versatile Frawley is poised to win his first international cap – and 10th overall – since coming on at centre in last summer’s 106-7 demolition of Portugal.
“He’s 100 per cent excited,” Farrell said of the 28-year-old.
“He’s been certainly frustrated with the lack of game time, certainly in the autumn.
“From what we’ve seen in training, how sharp he is and how eager he is to get going and the balance that he gives us on the bench, he’ll be ready to go.”
