IT’S THE ULSTER WAY
All players must buy into our club identity, insists Henderson
YOU’D never tell from last Friday’s dressing room celebrations that just six of the Ulster starting XV against Harlequins hail from the province.
The assumption is players not from the place shouldn’t really know the significance of what it means when the Northerners take a big European scalp. Yet there they were — both locals and imports — united in the TV pictures revealing a glimpse of their high-spirited inner sanctum.
Iain Henderson — a born and bred Ulsterman — loves this postgame banter. ‘We sing after every game we win. Everyone holds their jersey above their head and gets to throw a wet jersey at whoever they want, chanting, getting it on like hooligans, getting it on like idiots.
‘But that’s part of it, something that everyone in the squad buys into. After a hard-fought win the last thing you want to be doing is jumping up and tiring yourself out even more, but it’s one of the best bits of the night and everyone really enjoys that.
‘A few of the new boys, when they come in they look at what everyone is doing, getting on like idiots, but it’s all part of it, everyone buys into it and it’s great craic.’
Given their increasing reliance on recruiting Irish players from other provinces as well as additions from elsewhere, gelling the squad together and leaving them in no doubt as to what it means to play for Ulster is important business. Tommy Bowe sets the tone by heading up a culture committee.
‘Once or twice a month we get past players coming in for a chat, so the lads get a feel for what it means for local players and what it meant for them to play for Ulster and how proud they were wearing a white jersey, building all that around our club ethos, trying to work hard for each other and being more of a team rather than being a collection of players,’ continued Henderson.
‘What makes Ulster different from the other provinces is difficult to say because I have never played for another province. But with Ulster we are quite proud of our values and what we have got in terms of our fan base, the facilities we have got, but also the history behind the club.’
Dubliner John Cooney, who won the 2012 European Cup when he came off the bench in the final at Twickenham against Ulster, is one of these outsiders tasked with absorbing northern nuances and becoming a vibrant part of the set-up.
The 27-year-old’s signing didn’t set pulses racing among supporters angry that long-serving South African Ruan Pienaar was being forced out by an IRFU policy that Ulster nurture Irish-qualified scrum-halves.
Four months into the season, though, it’s now a case of “Ruan who?”, so good has Cooney been in the No9 jersey while becoming one of the locals in the process.
‘He [Pienaar] was a superstar for however many years, but I can only do what I can do really. I’m glad I’m trying to fill big boots and that gave me a lot of work in the summer because I knew I had a lot to do,’ said Cooney.
‘I don’t think it matters if I’m not from Ulster. I care about playing for Ulster as much as I did for Leinster. I bought into Connacht. I’d a lot of family from there, so that [move] was easy, but coming up to Ulster, I knew it was an opportunity and knew I had to put my head down.’
One of David Nucifora’s aims on becoming IRFU boss in April 2014 was to increase player movement around the country and Cooney is at the forefront of this new breed prepared to move outside his native province.
He was on holiday in Co Mayo over three years ago when then Leinster boss Matt O’Connor rang to check if he’d go on loan to Connacht for a season. He bristled at the idea of being shipped off west. But he realised the change of scenery made sense, even if he was forced to wait until December 2014 for his debut due to a shoulder operation and lack of form.
He stuck at it, signed a full-time deal for the following season rather than return to Leinster and with his Ulster stint now flourishing, he is a paid-up member of the Nucifora way of thinking. ‘I would recommend [moving around],’ he said.
Henderson is delighted with the wave of Irish imports coming Ulster’s way, a growing list that will next see Marty Moore and Jordi Murphy link up in Belfast next summer, evidence that the times are changing in a sport where crossing the provincial divide hasn’t been the done thing.
‘It [barriers] are breaking down with the levels of professionalism increasing. People are losing a bit of ego about who they play for. They are not as stubborn and realise that for their own professional career it will become a lot better to move somewhere else even though it may be one of the big rival clubs,’ suggested Henderson.
‘We’re trying to let the boys who come up understand what we are about, why we have our entity and why we are not just a feeder club for Leinster and pick up the scraps from Leinster’s academy or whoever doesn’t get in there. The boys who come up really relate to it.’