Dec 02,2024
He's the inside man and Jamison Gibson-Park predicts Jack Crowley and Sam Prendergast will duel it out for the Ireland number 10 jersey for years to come.
The Leinster scrum-half has been the number one choice for his adopted country since breaking into the international set-up in 2020, and won his 38th cap in the 22-19 Autumn Nations Series win over Australia on Saturday.
Much was made of head coach Andy Farrell’s decision to retain Leinster's Sam Prendergast at 10, a week after his first Test start against Argentina, ahead of Jack Crowley of Munster.
Crowley is only 24 and started the first nine games after Johnny Sexton’s retirement last year.
The 2024 Six Nations winner came off the bench for Prendergast after 66 minutes on Saturday, scoring a conversion as Ireland overturned a 19-15 deficit.
Twenty-one-year-old Prendergast had impressed on his second start, linking and kicking well, in addition to scoring five points off the tee.
The duo may go head-to-head when Munster host URC league leaders Leinster on 27 December.
"I'm loving playing with these guys full of youth and enthusiasm," said New Zealand native Gibson-Park.
"It's awesome for Irish rugby, we'll still see these guys duelling it out for years to come.
"It's pretty crazy with the youth, but they take in their stride and it's impressive.
"I wish I was at that stage [of development] when I was at that age."
Meanwhile, Farrell was keen to downplay his selection call and subsequent media talk about how Crowley took the news.
"When you guys feel like he’s been dropped, he’s not," said Farrell.
"And when you guys feel like he’s p****d off, he’s not.
"He’s a team player, and he gets the bigger picture himself and my conversations with the three fly-halves [including Ciarán Frawley] is that I wanted Sam to play unbelievably well, so that Jack responds and plays unbelievably well, and so Frawls does.
"And everyone keeps growing together. It’s part of the squad."
Ireland capped off their campaign with a third win from four.
They lost to New Zealand in round one before securing victories over varying quality over Los Pumas and Fiji.
The double Six Nations champions failed, however, to reach the standards achieved in their 2023 Grand Slam campaign and the opening win against France last spring.
"I wouldn't say it's a concern," said Gibson-Park (above), named on the World Rugby team of the year two weeks ago.
"The higher you go the tougher it gets.
"Everyone's gunning for Ireland now, we've been on top of the world rankings for a while.
"Teams want to have a proper crack off you. Learnings to take and we can get better, but you know yourself; when you get a shot at the top dogs it's all in and it certainly felt that way today.
"There's more of it coming around the corner [in the 2025 Six Nations], but that's where you want to be."
Farrell now moves onto Lions duty with defence coach Simon Easterby taking over for the championship and the summer tour, believed to be against Georgia and Romania.
Former Ireland flanker Easterby has been part of the national set-up for 10 years and Gibson-Park said: "He's part of a class coaching team, isn't he?
"We're used to working with these guys and it'll be no different. Faz will be missing, but we've an unbelievable crew of guys driving it on.
"It's going to be different with Faz gone, we won't know until we're in it, but it's exciting."
