CIAN AND SAM Prendergast are several years removed from their Newbridge College days at this stage, yet they’re still a presence around the Kildare school.
Young rugby players coming through Newbridge now look up to the Prendergast brothers, hoping to follow in their footsteps.
At just 24, Cian is already the Connacht captain and a senior Ireland international. 21-year-old Sam toured South Africa with Andy Farrell’s Ireland squad alongside Cian last summer and is highly rated by Leinster too.
Only recently home after starting all three games on the Emerging Ireland trip to South Africa, Sam doesn’t feature for Leinster in this evening’s URC clash against Cian’s Connacht side at Dexcom Stadium in Galway [KO 7.35pm, TG4/Premier Sports] but they played opposite each other last season.
For aspiring youngsters in Newbridge, it helps that the Prendergasts still visit the school. Cian has been in several times in recent years to speak to the players, while Sam comes in to coach and work with the school’s out-halves.
Johne Murphy, Newbridge’s director of rugby and senior team head coach, has been slagging Sam that he could become a permanent part of the coaching staff if he just learns how to drive.
But for injury, two other Newbridge alumni would probably be playing in Galway this evening. Connacht loosehead Jordan Duggan and Leinster back Jimmy O’Brien have also been good at giving back to their old school.
“Any of these guys are available if and when you make a phone call,” says Murphy, who came through Newbridge himself before his professional playing career with Leicester and Munster.
Newbridge has a proud history of producing rugby players who have gone on to big things. Geordan Murphy, Jamie Heaslip, Bernard Jackman, Tony Buckley, James Tracy, and Fionn Carr are among those to advance into professional rugby, some of their jerseys now proudly displayed on the walls in Newbridge.
But the Prendergast brothers are an understandable point of pride at the moment, particularly with Sam pushing through strongly.
In the 2019/20 season, Sam was in fifth year when Murphy’s Newbridge side reached the Leinster Schools Senior Cup final only to see the decider called off due to Covid-19.
They had to share the title with Clongowes and then in Sam’s sixth year at school, they got only one Senior Cup game because of the pandemic. It was heartbreaking for the team, which also included Leinster academy lock/flanker Diarmuid Mangan, but Murphy could already see that Sam had something special.
“From very early, the questions he asked were strikingly good. You’d take a step back and go, ‘That’s a great question.’ It’s how he critically thinks about the game, how much he was absorbed by it in terms of watching so many games,” says Murphy.
“He’d have sent clips of different teams playing asking if we could look at this or that. He was a student of the game even as a fifth year and he has brought that forward into his professional playing style.
“Sam led from the front on the pitch but also led from behind the scenes with his reviews, questions, and building that team ethos.”
Murphy, who returned to Newbridge in 2019 after four years at St Mary’s College, says Sam is one of the most talented young players he has worked with.
His maturity was as impressive as anything. Murphy didn’t get a chance to coach Cian, who finished school at the end of 2018/19 after captaining the senior team, but sees an identical mindset.
“Cian would be similar in that way,” says Murphy. “They come from an army family so there’s always going to be an element of that ingrained. Both their mum and dad have that background.
“They’re just an absolute pleasure to deal with.”
Duggan and O’Brien, who played together in Newbridge, were role models for the Prendergasts in their own years at the school.
Having spoken to previous coaches, Murphy knows that the likes of O’Brien and Duggan “helped change a lot after a few barren years for the school” by leaving a legacy of hard work.
Murphy is thankful that he came back to a rugby programme that had strong foundations, allowing him to add further layers.
From 500 students in his own school days, Newbridge – which is a fee-charging school – now has more than 900, split 50/50 between boys and girls.
The girls’ hockey programme has expanded notably in recent years, with Newbridge reaching the Leinster Schoolgirls Senior Cup final in 2022.
Rugby has enjoyed similar growth, with Murphy overseeing a busy programme. Newbridge can field up to four teams in first year, three in second year and at Junior level, while they will have four Senior teams this season.
Transition Year students can play ‘schools-youths’ rugby whereby they feature with both Newbridge and their local club side. The relationships with teams in their area are important for Newbridge, who attract players from clubs like Athy, Portlaoise, Cill Dara, Newbridge, Clane, some North Kildare, Naas, and Blessington.
All of these Newbridge teams require lots of coaching, with a team of around 35 coaches made up of school staff and people who come in from outside, like new defence coach Rhys Ruddock.
The senior team’s schedule is akin to a professional set-up, with three gym sessions per week, multiple on-pitch sessions, meetings, and video analysis on the Hudl platform or in person.
Bringing in someone with a CV like Ruddock’s underlines how seriously Newbridge take their rugby.
“It’s really big for the school and shows where we’d like to get to and what kind of programme we want to run for everyone,” says Murphy.
“He’s coming back in from professional rugby having worked with Jacques Nienaber and Andrew Goodman, Joe Schmidt, and Stuart Lancaster. We’re getting exposure to some of the things he learned.
“Rhys has also put basic things in place for defence like calling structures that we’ll put in at first year, then develop from there over a period of time.”
Clearly, any ambitious young players who want to chase professional careers are in a good place at Newbridge but Murphy is keen to point out that it’s not all about the most talented youngsters.
“It’s about playing numbers too and facilitating everyone across all levels and making sure that there’s a percentage of improvement across all players,” he says.
“So the guy who is in the IRFU’s National Talent Squad gets the same level of improvement as the guy playing social rugby all the way through. That’s really important.
“Sometimes results can be negative but we want their experience to be positive. We want players to take stuff from within the game that helps them with life outside rugby. We want healthier, happier students who play all sports.”
Murphy offers the example of Callum Bolton, who helped Kildare to the All-Ireland U20 Football Championship title last year having played in a Leinster Schools Senior Cup semi-final when he was in Newbridge. During Bolton’s time at the school, Murphy worked with his GAA coaches to ensure they were managing his training load smartly.
Murphy says Newbridge take as much pride in former pupils who have achieved things in hockey, cross country, showjumping, horse training, and all walks of life, not just rugby.
But there are certain times of the year when rugby hogs attention. The Leinster Schools Senior Cup will roll around again in the New Year, bringing with it the usual hype, media attention, and pressure.
Murphy believes the quality of rugby in the Leinster schools game is getting better every year. The system is now well-known around the rugby world and he sees that status as a positive and a negative.
He thinks the pressure and exposure can be “incredibly good” for young players, testing and developing their resilience in a way they might not otherwise experience in today’s society. Some players thrive in that pressure cooker but he knows it can affect others negatively for some time afterwards.
Murphy’s job is to make sure rugby is kept in perspective even while Newbridge are ambitious.
“Everything you apply within the four white lines – discipline, work ethic, respect – needs to be applied within the school,” he says.
“Sport is brilliant in the fact that the commitment you get for it can be applied to every walk of life. We work with the teachers to make sure we’re producing well-rounded people as well as well-rounded rugby players.”
