If anyone in Leinster was entitled to be a little miffed about the arrival of a world-class All Blacks player who has morphed into a specialist inside centre, it surely is Robbie Henshaw. But the plusses far outweigh the minuses.
Fortunately for Henshaw, he can also shift to outside centre, while Jordie Barrett has proven himself a fairly handy fullback, and besides there’s much to learn from the arrival of such a player, even if this heightens competition.
“It’s always great to have another specialist centre at 12 coming into the province and gaining knowledge and experience from him and to bounce things off him and learn,” says Henshaw.
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“I mean he’s a talented player and we’re enjoying what he’s brought to the club. Literally he arrived and he was straight into it, showing the player and the talent he is. I’ve had great conversations with him and he’s settled in so well and it’s been brilliant for us and Leinster as well.”
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Henshaw has been picking up some insight into rugby in New Zealand “and what the mindset is in New Zealand in attack and defence-wise; just little bits, not going too deep because we’ll probably be playing them again at some stage internationally. More the philosophies and their mindset around the game. Yeah, just little bits like that, not going too deep but also fascinating to see how they look at things”.
Barrett is an even more accomplished player than we had realised, although Henshaw already had a better idea than most of his new team-mate’s abilities after playing directly opposite the Kiwi at Test level.
“His basic skills are impressive, just his catch-pass and his array of kicking skills are off the charts. He didn’t surprise me at all; I knew he was very talented. But just to see it, he’s very talented around his basic skill set.”
The ability of Henshaw and Barrett was central to Leinster’s mini epic in La Rochelle last Sunday when emerging with a 16-14 win, although this will count for even more if Leinster beat Bath as well and better still secure a top-two seeding.
“Absolutely. For us it was a brilliant victory on the road down in La Rochelle. That was probably our hardest game of the season for us physically and we knew the intense environment we were going into.
“That was really positive on our side but we need to definitely flip the page and we need to go again this week because every point matters in this competition. So we need to try and get the max we can this weekend, which will put us in great stead going into the knock-out games.
“We want to play at home for every game we can. It makes such a difference for us to be at home.”
But Bath, after their win over Clermont kept them in the mix, will ask different questions of Leinster in their pool finale at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday (kick-off 5.30).
“I think Bath will offer an array of different attacking threats through Finn Russell, who will be leading it. What they do, they do incredibly well. They have different skill sets in the backs. They’ll kick to space, they’re quite pragmatic in terms of how they go up the field using Ben Spencer as a box-kicking threat, so they’ll have a plan to come and attack us aerially and when they get the ball they’ll have a go to go around us.
“So I think they [La Rochelle and Bath] are quite different teams, but Bath have that mixture of a power game and the skill set to play the fast game out wide as well.”
Bath’s threat is heightened by the unpredictable playmaking of Russell and, of course, the insider knowledge of former team-mate Ross Molony.
“We are well-aware of their attacking threats. They have been going really well this season. We just have to expect anything from Bath. I mean, they have a power game up front and they have quick and skilful backs out wide. I think for us it’s just being ready for anything.
“They will have a plan on how to attack our defensive system. Finn Russell will be leading that for them and I know Ross will have some information that he will understand about how we play, how we attack and defend that he’ll bring to Bath as well.”
Even so, Henshaw does not believe Leinster should overthink things and redesign their game excessively just because of Molony’s presence.
“Not really. I’m sure it’s more of a forwards thing – lineouts etc. But for us in the backs, not really. I think teams know your calls in attack but they still have to defend it. We have kinda gone away from worrying other teams knowing some of our calls, certainly in the backs because teams still have to defend.
“It’s tricky when you’re in game mode and you have to defend. You’re not worrying about what the call is.”
– Robbie Henshaw is an ambassador of Aer Lingus, the official airline of the IRFU
