Ire v Wal rte 2 mar 6 26

I think prendergast has been badly served by Andy and the irish coaches. He is a young lad who needed to me given game time but not thrown into the deep end and be told your the man. More development for him would have been better for him.

You'd hate to think he had been damaged mentally from this. I think it hurt Crowleys development too

Unfortunately, the coaches and the team didn't have much choice.

The 10s we have are the 10s we have. Jonny is gone. Carbery left. Ross Byrne left. JJ was gone at the time, but is poor anyway. Frawley had a couple of injuries in important windows, but he's not really a full on outhalf either.

Prendergast showed up pretty well for Leinster and so he was picked. It didn't work out, for now anyway.

Andy Farrell and his staff have to field a team and they can't recruit, only select from the four provinces.

Neither Leinster nor Ireland had the luxury of giving Sam Prendergast another year in the minor leagues to develop. And thats regrettable but unavoidable.

There's a lot of parallels between the handling of Frawley, Crowley and Prendergast.

All were dropped, proper dropped. All now seem hesitant to play off the cuff rugby in the Ireland camp. You can nearly feel the stress coming off Crowley these days, and he's a hard lad to bother. Crowley was almost happier playing a bit part for the last ten games or so - because he wasn't the main focus of the coaches, media and of course the casual pundits.

The press all week saying Crowley did well by playing "The System". I would argue that the system does not allow your flair players to show their flair, then the system needs changing and if the coach is unable to see that, then the coach needs changing.

There is a bit of revolutionism going on regarding Prendergast. He’s not currently playing well but this is a guy who won the Rising Player of the 6N award last year, the Irish Young Player of the Year award and the Leinster Young Player of the Year award last year. The last two voted by peers (ie probably highest form of praise available) and the 6N award by a panel.

Those awards would suggest that he was ready to play at this level and actually thrived rather than merely survived. A young player having second season syndrome is not uncommon and I fully expect him to come back stronger assuming he can improve on his weaknesses.

These back and forth diminish the thread but I really don't understand. You clearly argued that blaming Sexton for poor kicking was provincial bias, which im challenging by saying consistently poor kicking reflects on the kicking coach. You'll have to explain how I'm missing the point.

In time Prendergast will be the incumbent Irish outhalf, I have little doubt of that. Crowley is and always has been just holding pattern, he isn't good enough IMHO. Of course someone else could come out of the woodwork, Casper Gabriel etc but right now that is the way I see it.

That Scottish scrum looks strong. I would expect it to put us under pressure.

I think you have your head buried in the sand. The complete lack of tactical kicking from 10 yesterday against the weakest and most inexperienced backline in the championship was startling. Not to mention the poor place kicking. We also have virtually no chance of finishing on top because of that shank vs Italy losing any chance of a BP.

Both players have their upsides and weaknesses and Crowley is on top at the moment. But its a lot closer between the two than you choose to admit.

You're proving my point for me