Cian Prendergast hailed the courage of his younger brother Sam for landing the match-winning conversion in Ireland’s thrilling 33-31 win in their opening Nations Championship game against Australia in front of a captivated Saturday-night full house in Sydney’s Allianz Stadium. Cian had been replaced and was on the sidelines when his younger brother nailed that decisive 78th-minute conversion of Thomas Clarkson’s close-range try. Earlier, from a near identical angle 15m in from the left touchline, the Irish outhalf had perpetrated the only miss from his first four place-kicks, pulling the conversion to Josh van der Flier’s 19th-minute try wide of the near upright.But with the match tied at 31-31, the younger Prendergast confidently struck the ball to bisect the posts. “I’m delighted for Sam to slot the kick,” said his older brother. “I thought he was brilliant and managed the game excellently in the second half in the right areas of the field. He kicked really well, and yeah, some set of stones on him to slot the kick at the end.”That match-winning kick added to the younger brother’s redemptory end to the season. He lost both the starting outhalf jersey and his place in the squad with first Ireland for the final three Six Nations’ game and then Leinster in their Champions Cup run-in, before returning to guide his province in the final three knock-out ties of their URC title defence. “Obviously, he had a bit of a tough Six Nations and a tough kind of run until the end of the URC season, so I’m really stoked for him with the way his season has turned around,” said the older brother. “He was excellent against the Bulls and he was excellent in that run-in for Leinster. For him to kick that kick at the end, it just shows the character he is.”This was only the second time the Prendergasts had started a rugby match of any kind together, and any pressure they may have felt can only have been intensified by the memory of the first, when Ireland were beaten 36-14 on Six Nations opening night in Paris last February.“Every time you play for Ireland, there’s an element of pressure,” said Cian. “We don’t want to make it about ourselves when we both get picked together. It’s about producing a performance for Ireland, and I’m just delighted we got the result.“Obviously the game in Paris the last time we started together didn’t go the way we wanted to, so it was it was brilliant to get the result there.”Their parents, Ciara and Mark, had been in the Stade de France that Thursday night and were memorably rewarded for deciding to travel to Australia at relatively short notice last week.“It’s class,” said Cian. “Both my parents, they arrived in on a Thursday evening. We were chatting to them after [the match]. It was cool.”The Connacht captain, whose inclusion was reward for his storming form in the second half of their season as they secured a place in the URC playoffs and next season’s Champions Cup, freely admitted Ireland had not been at their best, especially in that defensively porous first half.“It was a weird old game,” he said. “In fairness, they were good in the first half. They were physical. It didn’t feel like ourselves out there in the first half at times, but the bench made a huge impact, and the grit of the group. We dug out a win, so delighted with that.”Expanding on Ireland not feeling like themselves, he said: “Just defensively we felt like there was just a little bit more in it. Obviously we’ll look back in the game and see what happened, but, look, there’s definitely more in us, and that’s the exciting thing as well.”Ultimately though, Ireland were rewarded for consistently turning down three points and kicking to the corner, with the younger Prendgast vindicating that decision every time. “They were brilliant. He was going for it in fairness,” said Cian approvingly.Backing up this approach, Ireland also scored two of their five tries from well-rehearsed tap penalties: van der Flier taking a good out-in line from Dan Sheehan’s no-look pass for his 19th-minute try, and Clarkson quickly following up Rónan Kelleher’s tap and charge for that 77th-minute try.“It was a good plan we put in place,” said the older Prednergast. “To score the try off the first one was nice. And then to do the same move and play out the back and score was nice as well.”Presumably Paul O’Connell tap plays?“Yeah, I think it’s Paulie. Paulie tells us what’s going on. I’m not in the coaches meeting, but I think it’s Paulie.”“We got the tap [play] on Monday and then we just had a couple of reps, but I think there’s a huge emphasis on us pre- and post- training to work on those little combinations and connections like that. Obviously, Sheeno and Josh had worked on it together and you saw the result of it.”