Sam Prendergast loan move from Leinster to be Connacht ‘10’ stalls: ‘It’s not a straightforward process’

“If he is coming, I certainly don’t know about it at this point and that’s not trying to straight-bat it,” said Wilkins.

“That’s where we are at.”

Connacht have made a genuine attempt to lure Prendergast to the Sportsground, which would see the 21-year-old out-half link-up with his older brother Cian (24). The pair came up against each other at the RDS on Friday night, as Sam confidently steered Leinster to a comfortable 33-7 bonus-point win.

Sam’s impressive performance was a timely reminder of the potential that Leinster have on their hands, so from that end, Leo Cullen is obviously reluctant to lose a young player of his calibre.

With uncertainty hanging over the future identity of Leinster’s out-half, Prendergast may well back himself to feature in more of his home province’s big games next season, rather than join Connacht on loan.

“We have obviously lost JJ (Hanrahan) for the best part of next season, certainly until the new year anyway. I think it’s important we get another ‘10’ in, partly as back-up to Jack Carty but also as competition,” Wilkins said.

“I think both JJ and Jack have stepped up this year in terms of having that competition with each other, so I think it is important (to sign an out-half).

“Who that is going to be, I honestly don’t know. We are at the stage of compiling a shortlist. That can be people outside of Ireland. We have scope to do that for something like this.

“I think it will be a short-term agreement or a medium-term loan, but you also look in Ireland and that means for something like that to come to fruition, you need the IRFU aligned.”

“You need any of the parent clubs, the other provinces to be aligned as well, so it’s not a straightforward process. But we definitely want to bring someone in and we will see where we go over the next couple of weeks.” Cullen, who has selected Prendergast 15 times already this season, was pleased with the Kildare native’s performance, as the Leinster boss made it clear that he sees both his short and long-term future at the club.

“Yeah, definitely,” Cullen insisted.

“When you’ve got young players, 20/21 years of age and you’re sort of in the Academy cycle or you’re stepping into the senior ranks of the team, as I’ve said, you have to keep picking them.

“I know lots of people would love us to pick the exact same team all the time, but unfortunately that’s not how it is because then when you need to fall back on players or whatever that is, have competition for places and all the rest, that’s what you need.

“It requires us to be brave at different times and pick young players, and listen, I thought Sam did lots of good things.

“Every young player, all the players have things to work on, so it’s just about improving all the time. We don’t just want to have players ready to play at this level, it’s to play at the levels beyond that as well – be top-end international players.

“That’s a big part of what we are trying to do here. But yeah, it was another positive step for Sam and his development to get through 80 minutes.

“You saw lots of positive involvements during the course of the game. He was obviously ‘10’ for the first 60 minutes and then even he moves to ‘15’ as well towards the tail end of the game. So, yeah, it’s another positive outing for him.”

Meanwhile, Leinster are sweating over the fitness of Jack Conan ahead of Saturday’s URC quarter-final after the No 8 was forced off at half-time of the win over Connacht with a knock.

In more encouraging news, Garry Ringrose received a positive update from a specialist on Friday regarding the centre’s ongoing shoulder injury, with Leinster hoping their co-captain will return to full contact training this week.

The news will come as a welcome boost to Ireland head coach Andy Farrell ahead of naming his squad for the summer tour to South Africa for which Connacht back-three player Mack Hansen remains a doubt, as he continues to struggle with a long-standing shoulder problem.