No place like home for Sam Prendergast, says Leinster coach Sean O'Brien

Sean O'Brien believes there’s no better place for Sam Prendergast to serve his apprenticeship than at home.

After starring for Ireland in the Under-20 Grand Slam win in the spring, Prendergast made another notable impression on his senior debut.

The 20-year-old kicked 14 points as Leinster clawed their way to a 39-36 BKT URC victory against the Emirates Lions, a match played at altitude in Johannesburg.

His performance was not only deemed worthy of the man of the match award but also of the URC player of the weekend nod.

The Kildare native is now firmly in the mix for more game-time with Leinster and that presents the kind of headache that coaches love.

With Johnny Sexton having finished his Leinster playing career, Prendergast will now battle for game-time in the 10 shirt with Ross Byrne, Harry Byrne and Ciaran Frawley.

But the suggestion that Prendergast or other players who might not get as many minutes as they want could benefit from "loan" moves, to the French second tier, for example, was given short shrift by contact skills coach O’Brien.

"Honestly, no, I don’t think it is," he told RTÉ Sport.

"The development of a player like him, or others in that situation...what way are they going to develop the best?

"For our sake and for the Irish set-up's sake, it’s probably in his home province where he’s going to get really good coaching, where he’s going to get minded and looked after well.

"You put someone, any young fella, into PRO D2 or wherever you are going, it could be anywhere, they could be thrown in the deep end and not managed properly maybe, or mightn’t have the standard of coaching, so there are a lot of elements to it.

"Where is the best place for him to develop and have a very long career?

"Not just in the short term