Iain Henderson calls it a new stage in his career. At 32, his venerable warhorse image of a secondrow with edge in the twilight of a Lions and Ireland career comes with some brightness and hope. Enjoying the role and the influx of talent around his position, Henderson has also been Ulster Rugby’s lone standard-bearer at Test level for this Six Nations championship.
Last month headlines in the Belfast Telegraph warned of dire consequences when there were no Ulster players on Andy Farrell’s 23-man squad to face France in the opening match.
“Landmark to forget for Ulster as province’s players shut out of Ireland’s match day squad against France,” said the paper. “Ulster have hit a landmark to forget,” ran the copy. Since then, things have improved. Henderson has recovered from a dislocated toe and added energy when he came off the bench against England last week.
But with Joe McCarthy, Tadhg Beirne, Thomas Ahern and the injured James Ryan, the position has become cluttered with talent. Embrace it or fear it, Henderson sees no reason to complain.
“I’ve had a lot of people say that to me, they say, ‘Oh, no Ulster players are in, no Ulster players are in,’ and from an internal point of view I can understand that the players are in a position that can understand why they were selected,” he says.
“It’s frustrating not being selected but I understand the coaches are trying to do their best to ensure they have the best team to win the game at the weekend, and for their plan I have full faith in what they want to do.”
McCarthy has come into the squad like a snowplough, while Ahern is at the periphery, although called into the training squad with prop Oli Jager, who earned his first cap against Wales, and outhalf Sam Prendergast. They are players in which Farrell sees potential. Stoically, Henderson looks around and can read the landscape and is comfortable about what he sees. It comes back to his competitive nature.
“I feel like I have slipped down the pecking order, if you like, but I don’t see that as the negative,” he says. “It might have been two or three years ago. I’m still in here competing and training constantly with guys, and it’s exciting to be pushing for a position and being involved in a unit of players that are individually world-class at what they do. The opportunity to drive something between those guys together to get a result at the weekend, I am really enjoying that.”
With Ryan’s injury, Beirne and McCarthy have settled into Farrell’s thinking, although the two also started with Ryan on the bench for the game against Wales. The coach made the original statement by starting the pair in the opening match against France in Marseille and, while McCarthy was quiet against England on a day Ireland struggled, at just 22 his force of nature, size and strength has ensured visibility.
McCarthy has started in all four games, with 66, 80, 54 and 62 minutes under his nine-cap belt, with Henderson’s current impact player story being as much about the emergence of the New York-born secondrow as an 80-cap Ulster lock edging into his 30s.
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“I’ve loved every bit of the Six Nations and seeing Joe come in over the last year or 18 months,” says Henderson. “He has grown brilliantly into the position, what he adds about the place and in training, his physicality in games is massive. He just has a massive future ahead of him.
“Tadhg is playing some of the rugby of his life, he has been brilliant as well. Frustrating for James to have the injury he has, but the competition is brilliant and away from the field we are all doing our analysis, prepping and training with each other through the week. We work very well as a unit and it is something I don’t take for granted even though I have been behind those three guys.”
The dislocated big toe is now okay. He says with some sense of the absurd that it is strapped, splinted and carbon plated. He is now able to push off, whereas before the engineering work he was unable to feel anything. The manageable injury typifies Henderson’s attitude and that is to fight his corner, adjust and improve – as Peter O’Mahony had to do a few years ago.
“In my head that’s part and parcel of what the job is, and how you manage those highs and lows and your own expectations and goals,” he says. “Your view on it changes slightly as you get older, being able to manage those emotions better. I know that happened two or three seasons ago with Pete and look where he is at now.”
On the cusp of back-to-back championships, Henderson is at peace with his place in the squad and the role he has been given to add value in the later stages of a match. But don’t expect this week that he won’t be pushing for more.
