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6th May 2025
04:17pm BST
Safe to say that Sam Prendergast's reputation and Lions hopes took a serious dent after Leinster's Champions Cup loss to Northampton on Saturday.
The Leinster out-half was comfortably outplayed by his opposite number, Fin Smith, with his poor tackling starkly visible in the lead up to three of Northampton's tries.
However, in his defence, he did have a big role in three of his own side's tries.
Nonetheless, he was called out by former England and Lions star, Ben Young, with the scrum-half claiming that he cannot think outside the system that Leinster and Ireland have laid out for him.
On the For the Love of Rugby podcast, he said: “I’ve said it before about Prendergast. Against France for Ireland he was on the back foot and he looked like he had no idea how to manage that, how to grab the game by the scruff of the neck and figure it out. I saw it again at the weekend.
“He didn’t know, he didn’t have the answers. He suddenly started doing counter-attack and shifting it when it was still a tight game.
“He just looked flustered. He didn’t look like he knew how to drag Leinster back into the game.
“When I think about the tens that are available – Finn Russells, Marcus Smiths, Fin Smiths, your George Fords – you slot them in that Leinster team, can you imagine how good they would look?
"That, for me, is enough. You put Prendergast in some of those other teams that those guys are playing, where they haven’t got the luxury of a full international team, he doesn’t get anywhere near them."
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