A shrewd man once said: ‘never arm yourself with a knife if you are heading into a gunfight’.
Choosing your weapons is extremely important for any commander to consider before he fires his first shot. For a sporting coach, the same rules apply.
First of all, there is the landscape and weather to ponder over. Secondly, there is your capability to sustain repeated pressure. Thirdly and most importantly, it’s imperative that you understand your opponent’s strengths and weaknesses.
Ciarán Frawley of Ireland is tackled by Jiuta Wainiqolo of Fiji. Picture: Shauna Clinton/Sportsfile
Those who know anything about Fijian rugby will tell you the last thing you want to do is challenge them to any kind of physical confrontation. Taking on these mighty South Sea islanders in an arm wrestle and there is a very good chance your arm will end up in a sling.
It really boils down to getting a balance between shrewdness, physicality and tempo. On this occasion, Andy Farrell and his coaching team got the blend spot on.
If you look at how Ireland scored their first three tries, rather than looking to punch holes in the Fijian’s powerful first line of defence the men in green opted to seek soft shoulders and hit them in areas where they didn’t expect to be hit.
The first of those seven-pointers manifested itself when Caelan Doris, who would have been my Man of the Match, crossed the try line after a perfectly executed training ground move.
Thinking the Irish forwards were going to attempt to maul forward after a clean take from the lineout, the Fijians were hoodwinked into defending the ensuing maul. However, the ball was rapidly transferred through a few pairs of hands and Doris by running a very clever line of support dotted down for Ireland’s first of eight tries.
The second try came courtesy of yet another training move when from a five-metre penalty the young debutant hooker Gus McCarthy and Doris seamlessly combined from a tap-and-go to see Josh van der Flier cros
The third came from another five-metre lineout that saw the visitors get sucked into defending a maul, but in doing so carelessly left their flanks unmanned and the ever-busy Craig Casey dived over to more or less kill off the game.
At that point, Ireland were 21-3 up, but still had one more trick up their sleeves before the half-time buzzer was to be sounded.
Ireland’s Rónan Kelleher touches down. Picture: INPHO/Dan Sheridan
With the clock in the red and from yet another close-range play, Prendergast’s perfectly weighted kick landed in the hands of winger Mack Hansen and he trotted over the white-wash as if he was out for a Sunday evening stroll.
Prendergast once again converted and even though the young fly-half was three from three, it’s probably 40 minutes of rugby he will want to forget.
Tipped by many as the true successor to Johnny Sexton, Prendergast has a long way to go before he earns the right to call himself Ireland’s first-choice 10.
Apart from firstly having to oust the ever-reliable Jack Crowley, Prendergast must experience the very many lows that come hand in hand with playing international rugby. He can only do that by making mistakes and finding a way of dealing with and fixing them.
Shortly after Ireland’s first try, Prendergast recklessly caught Fiji’s Kitione Salawa who was chasing down his own kick.
After reviewing the incident Scottish referee Hollie Davidson showed the out-half a yellow card and placed the incident on review. Astoundingly the card was not upgraded to a red and he was allowed return.
I just wonder if it was the other way around and it was the Fijian who exacted the foul, what colour would the card have been?
Prendergast also made multiple mistakes with the ball and I have no problem with this because he can only learn from his errors. Yet unless he learns to control his temperament his time in the green will be very short-lived.
Next week Ireland will welcome Joe Schmidt and his Australian squad for the last of this year’s Autumn internationals.
I really hope that Farrell decides to run with many of the younger players who he picked on Friday night.