Sam Prendergast: 'I'd see myself as a different person to him but I get along great with him'
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Whether it’s the cropped hair, the angular frame, the preternatural self-assurance and abilities on the field or, of course, the number on their backs, the similarities between Johnny Sexton and Sam Prendergast are numerous and obvious.
The younger of them has a long, long way to go if he is to come close to Sexton’s list of achievements but, at 21 years of age, Prendergast has made a head start on the former Ireland captain who was 24 when he really broke into the Leinster team.
Capped three times for Ireland during the November internationals, the young Kildare man has followed it with successive starts in the Champions Cup, scoring two tries away to Bristol and being named man of the match on Saturday against Clermont Auvergne.
Sexton’s story was already well-documented by the time he retired after Ireland’s World Cup quarter-final defeat to New Zealand late last year. The release of his autobiography ‘Obsessed’ has added layer after layer to the story within.
Prendergast has been through it from cover to cover.
“I thought it was very good. I don't know if it was because I didn't know a whole pile about him, because he never seemed to disclose much in the media, but I didn't know a lot of the stuff about him.
“It was just great to read about his different little situations and he has a different back story to a lot of people. I would have known a bit of it maybe from his brother Mark [who was attack coach on Prendergast’s Ireland U20s side] but it was a good read, I thought.”
Prendergast didn’t get to cross paths all that much with Sexton at Leinster but the latter has taken on an informal role as a member of the Ireland coaching staff and become a welcome “sounding board” for his Leinster successor, Jack Crowley and Ciaran Frawley.
Ultimately, this new generation will have to be their own men.
Sexton brought a force of personality to the game that is rare in any walk of life, one that had to be tempered when he took over captaincy duties later in his career, and his would-be successor isn’t sure that this sort of approach can be replicated or created.
"I don't know, like. I think he's very special in the way he's driven and I think it was his biggest strength, how he was motivated.
“I'd see myself as a different person to him but I get along great with him. I don't know how much similarities we have like that but it was cool to read about that sort of stuff because I hadn't seen him too much in the environment.”
The narrative of a player who has rocketed from nowhere isn’t entirely true.
There were 16 appearances for Leinster last season alone, three of them coming off the bench in ‘Europe’, and he had been such a star with the Ireland U20s that Sonny Bill Williams was singing his praises on social media.
Still, its one thing to be signposted, another again to fly by it at a hundred miles an hour. Little more than a month has passed since he made that Test debut against Argentina: look at how much he’s crammed in since.
“It has been a surprise but it's just trying to be ready. As I said [before], I haven’t done a whole pile of reflecting. I've just been trying to play well if I get an opportunity and then the game after that to keep trying to play well.”
There will be bumps on this road. Crowley’s struggles with Munster in Castres last Friday night, and earlier in the season, are all in keeping with the ups and downs that all players experience regardless of ability or praise.
Crowley who was still first in line for the Ireland ten role at the start of November, after all, and his Leinster rival still has only 25 top-level senior appearances under his belt as we approach the turn of the season and the New Year.
Every day is a school day at this grade.
“It’s just so quick,” he explained. “Defences are quicker to get set and you have to take your opportunities quicker, you have to be more accurate. That is the big learning, how quick you have to be to take space. Defences don’t let you do as you want and it’s difficult.”
Like Crowley, he appears to have the sort of temperament to handle that. If there is a touch of flamboyance to some of his game then it is absent in those stark black boots and an insistence that the spotlight hasn’t changed anything about him beyond those white lines.
“No, life hasn’t changed at all … just rugby, rugby, rugby.”
Leo Cullen has already confirmed that Leinster will be making wholesale changes for this Saturday’s URC meeting with Connacht in Dublin. The workload asked of so many players turning out for Leinster and for Ireland this last six weeks demands that.
Some will welcome that more than others. Prendergast for one isn’t of a mind to take the foot off the accelerator. Not now that he is just settling in behind the wheel.
“I love playing. I just want to keep playing and take whatever opportunities I can get. That’s up to Leo. I don’t mind playing whenever.”