Connacht’s Pete Wilkins says he has no information on potential Sam Prendergast's loan move from Leinster

Connacht coach Pete Wilkins stated that there hasn't been any communication with Sam Prendergast regarding a potential loan to the Irish province for the upcoming season.

However, he mentioned that he has been given permission by the IRFU to recruit an outhalf.

Connacht have made a sincere effort to attract Prendergast to the Sportsground, where the 21-year-old out-half would join forces with his older brother Cian (24). The siblings faced each other at the RDS on Friday night, where Sam confidently guided Leinster to a convincing 33-7 bonus-point victory.

“Look, if he (Sam) is coming, I certainly don’t know about it at this point and that’s not trying to straight-bat it. That’s where we are at," said Wilkins.

“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 backup to Jack Carty but also as competition. I think 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 outhalf).

“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 with whatever the chats are.

“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.”

Connacht finished the 2023/24 season of the United Rugby Championship with nine wins from 18 matches as they missed out on the quarter-finals qualification.