A little cruelly perhaps, they’ve been pitted against each other like two pugilists for our delectation. Yet, a little oddly, Sam Prendergast and Jack Crowley will finally face off for the first time ever in this Saturday’s Leinster v Munster set-to at Croke Park (kick-off 5.15pm).
After all, their claims for the Irish number 10 jersey have generated more debate than any other individual rivalry for the last year, yet squad rotation and game management meant each in turn missed the home legs of last season’s derbies. A marquee fixture missing one of the two main protagonists for the Irish 10 jersey seemed daft.
Not any more. In recent weeks, the opposing young 10s in the famed blue and red jerseys have had top billing. Nor can the mainstream media be blamed for stoking the rivalry. Well, not entirely anyway.
In addition to social media, the marketing departments of both Leinster and the URC have made prominent use of both young men, as well as images of Johnny Sexton infamously roaring at a prostrate Ronan O’Gara in that 2009 Champions Cup semi-final at, appropriately, Croke Park.
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Heated outhalf rivalries are hardly new. Rewind to the first of a two-Test series in 1979 Australia when Tony Ward had just been named European Player of the Year. Not even Ollie Campbell, who landed in Australia with just one cap, expected to be named at 10.
But so it came to pass, creating such a furore that the Irish Press front page headline read “Ward out, Campbell in”, and it was given higher priority than a piece about the pope coming to visit Ireland. Noel Murphy’s decision was vindicated as Campbell kicked 15 points in the first Test and steered Ireland to a 2-0 series win. So began the great Campbell-Ward debate.
“If you’re fairly young and new to the game, you might not get that when people like me saying the number 10 was the general,” says Stuart Barnes, the former England outhalf turned erudite pundit and now a writer for the Times and Sunday Times in the UK.
“He was Napoleon, and it was about who was the better player; how that person shaped a team. You talk about Ward and Campbell. I was a teenager in England, and I was a Tony Ward man but, a bit later, I thought maybe Ollie Campbell had a more all-round game. But no other position has that.
“A winger can run a hundred metres in 10.4, and can be 19 stone with quick feet, but they rely so much on others. Now there’s an argument that the 10s rely on the eight forwards and the number 9, but it is the epicentre of decision-making and rugby union is different to rugby league because there is more key decision-making made.”
Also, they are usually the goalkickers, match-winners and chief strategists of their teams. Think O’Gara’s drop goal in 2009 in Cardiff, or Sexton’s in Paris in 2018, and World Cup-winning drop goals in extra time and Joel Stransky and Jonny Wilkinson.
“Moments,” agrees Barnes. “They’re the blokes who nail the moments and you remember them. In England, the defining moment still is 2003 and Johnny Wilkinson’s drop goal off his wrong foot and Ian Robertson on the BBC Radio screaming with Rob Andrew, the co-commentator, funnily enough. That is what people who like sport, but don’t know much about rugby, think English rugby is. It’s Wilkinson 2003, November the 22nd which, by the way, is my birthday. But I don’t remember it for any sacred reasons of myself.”
Barnes actually felt Wilkinson was slightly overrated.
“But if you thought that Charlie Hodgson was a better player than Jonny Wilkinson, you were going to get a barrel of bullshit from readers because you weren’t allowed to say it.”
Barnes himself speaks from experience, having mostly lost out on the English 10 jersey to Rob Andrew despite having plenty of support among the media, and his own experience demonstrates that it’s impossible for the protagonists to ignore the outside noise.
“The difference, in those distant days, was no social media. And players are human beings and they look at it. I think that more than anything drives any rivalry or animosity if it exists. With the newspapers, I tended to read them if I’ve had a good game, and if I hadn’t, I tended to ignore them.
“I knew myself when I was playing well or badly. I thought I was better than Rob Andrew. I’m not saying I was, but I thought I was.
“And I couldn’t understand why they didn’t pick me.
“I don’t think Rob disliked me, but he thought: ‘Why is this bloke who’s got hardly any caps getting so many headlines?’ I always thought ‘Rob can’t do this’ and Rob would think ‘Barnesy can’t do that’. But it wasn’t personal. It was about what we gave to a team.
“When you stop playing, that’s a different kettle of fish. When you’re playing you maximise the opposition’s weaknesses and you minimise your own. And everyone does that. Johnny Sexton would read a game of rugby better than he would read the strengths and weaknesses of Ronan O’Gara and vice versa. O’Gara was a great caller of a game, but he might not quite get Sexton as accurately as others because of this animosity – or rivalry, let’s call it.”
Possibly the most intense number 10 rivalry in New Zealand, certainly in the professional era, was between Andrew Mehrtens and Carlos Spencer, which Barnes says was North Island (Spencer) v South Island (Mehrtens).
“That was also an aesthetic one. Carlos had this incredible bag of tricks. There’s probably never been a flyhalf who could do so many clever things and I remember people used to say to me: ‘You’d be a Carlos Spencer man.’ And I’d get really angry.
“I’d go: ‘No, I’m a Mehrtens man because flyhalf is about calling the game as well as having the moment.’ And Mehrtens drove the ship much better. Carlos Spencer was a joy to watch and I loved watching him play, but it never crossed my mind that he would be picked ahead of Andrew Mehrtens.
“But those were days when benches weren’t sophisticated and that counts as well, because if they needed Carlos for 20 to come and win it from behind, you’d bring him on.”
In French rugby, teams have been built around “le petit general” at number 9. Yet in latter years the rivalry between Romain Ntamack and Matthieu Jalibert has also generated fierce debate and polarised opinions.
“Ntamack, when everyone’s fit and well, has a huge advantage in that he’s got the world’s best rugby player playing beside him,” Barnes points out in reference to Antoine Dupont being his half-back partner with Toulouse. “The 9-10 have that symbiotic link. So that gives Ntamack an advantage.”
Barnes also cites Jalibert’s “beautiful performance” in guiding Bordeaux Bègles to last season’s Champions Cup final win over Northampton.
[ Friendships parked ahead of first Leinster-Munster showdown of the seasonOpens in new window ]
And so back to Prendergast and Crowley, which Barnes describes as “the best 10 rivalry in the northern hemisphere for a while”. Two seasons ago, much to the puzzlement of his desk, Barnes wrote that Crowley was man-of-the-match when Munster lost 50-35 to the Sharks in Durban.
“He was fantastic. I watched him really closely and I thought: ‘This kid is absolutely brilliant. His timing, his touch, his control. He’s going to be a Lions 10.’ I have, for a large part of last season, stayed true to Crowley. I felt he had more vision.
“Then, this other bloke Prendergast starts delivering the most subtle passing game that you can imagine outside of Finn Russell. Finn Russell is the best passer there is at the moment. Prendergast has got the most fluid wrists imaginable. He can put people into space. He can make errors and seem not to care about it. He can kick a ball 60 metres to within five in the biggest arena because he’s got nerves of steel.
“I just thought: ‘Jesus, I’ve been a Crowley man and I’m wrong.’ I don’t know whether there is a right or wrong because they’re both very good players, but I thought Andy Farrell got it wildly wrong not taking Prendergast on the Lions tour.
“I thought it was ridiculous. I couldn’t see how Finn Smith merited being in above either of the two. I thought there was potentially a case to go Finn Russell and the two Irish players, who give you something slightly different.
“But I hold them in the highest esteem because when they play, I just think with Crowley: ‘What’s he going to do?’ He doesn’t look as elegant, but he thinks fast.
“Prendergast is just a thing of beauty. Now he’s got to learn to tackle.
“But as I’ve said to people, tackling is a state of mind. He’s not a small bloke. He’s a big guy. You don’t leave a flyhalf out of the equation because he’s not a good tackler. You get your defence coach to get him tackling because he’s such a good player.”
Barnes is still a little undecided.
“I switched to Prendergast because I just think he has something that no other flyhalf in Ireland has had for a long, long time. He’s got magic in his hands. But he does make a few more errors than the other bloke.
“So, it’s a really hard, big call. I think if Ireland are saying we want to be winning the World Cup in a few years’ time, then you’d be saying, which of them is more likely to be a world great and steer us all that way? I think possibly it’s Prendergast. But I think Crowley is brilliant.
“So, I say that about Prendergast with the greatest respect to the other bloke and also the proviso that you should never change your mind after one game, but you could do after the Autumn Internationals if they both played two each.
“I might say: ‘You know what? I was wrong because facts change and they change quickly with flyhalves as well.’ But right now, I think it’s a great rivalry for Ireland because it gives them two ways of playing. If they handle the two players well and they can maintain a friendly rivalry, then it’s brilliant for Ireland.”
Head-to-head
Sam Prendergast
Age: 22.
Leinster: Played 36, points 225.
Ireland: Played 9, points 73.
Jack Crowley
Age: 25.
Munster: Played 73, points 350.
Ireland: Played 26, points 153.
