'He's ready' - Andy Farrell backs Sam Prendergast to impress on debut

Andy Farrell says Sam Prendergast is ready to make the step up to Test rugby, and has backed the young Leinster out-half to take his chance when he makes his debut in Friday night's meeting with Argentina.

The 21-year-old has been included on the bench for the visit of Los Pumas to Aviva Stadium, where he will provide cover for Jack Crowley, who keeps his place in the starting side following last week’s 23-13 defeat to New Zealand.

Prendergast’s debut had been expected this month. The former Ireland U20 international was involved in Farrell’s extended squads for the Six Nations, and the summer tour of South Africa, while he has seemingly overtaken both Ross and Harry Byrne in the depth chart at his province.

The recent Emerging Ireland tour of Bloemfontein was effectively a dry run for the Kildare native to see how he ran a match week, and he was the only player to start all three games of that Toyota Challenge.

"He’s ready," was Farrell’s short assessment of the rookie out-half.

And the Ireland coach (below) says he’s been impressed with the bullishness shown by the young 10 in his short career to date.

"For a young fellah that’s not had much game-time provincially, he’s obviously had more of late, but in an ironic way he’s probably been patient enough, because, in his own mind he’d probably thought he’s been ready for quite some time because he’s that kind of kid, a confident kid.

"The experience that he’s got from being around the squad, he’s comfortable in his own skin.

"The reason for taking him on the Emerging tour was to make sure that he understood what it was to grab hold of his team and show that he is in charge. He showed that in abundance, we’ve seen the knock-on effect from that in the squad in the last couple of