We’ve all been guilty of being a bit careless — Henderson

IAIN HENDERSON has taken Ulster’s slippage personally and believes today’s Champions Cup game against La Rochelle represents more than just an opportunity to claim a valuable win in Europe. He wants to see a performance of substance, and not some desperate effort to paper over the cracks which have widened in recent weeks following the 99 points conceded in three inter-pros. Those encounters have heaped pressure and scrutiny on all at Kingspan Stadium like never before. The criticism, in Henderson’s eyes, is more than justified and the Ireland forward had no trouble calling out his team-mates on their lack of effort. ‘What’s been said about people, there’s a few spectators on the pitch and it’s been like that for the last three weeks, I feel anyway,’ said Henderson (pictured). ‘It’s been there in every game, and I think everyone on the pitch at some point has been guilty of it. ‘Boys generally being a bit lazy, not working hard enough, that’s something we have to fix. ‘We need a proper performance on Saturday and I’m not talking about winning, or scoring 50 points. ‘I’m saying a team performance, solid in defence and attack and sealing up a lot of those leaks that we’ve had over the last number of weeks. ‘There’s no point in shying away from the fact that they’ve been there and there’s no shying away from anything against La Rochelle, that’s for sure.’ Annoyance dripping from every word, Henderson went into some detail on what it’s been like to be an Ulster player over the past few weeks. Heavy defeats away to Connacht and Leinster, either side of a lucky home win over 13-man Munster, when they came from 17 points down to snatch a late win, have seen team morale take a nosedive. ‘After the Connacht game, it felt like we’d taken that personally. ‘A lot of people probably didn’t enjoy their few days off [over Christmas] as they would have otherwise. ‘It’s the same story after the result last weekend, and even after Munster, the boys were really annoyed. You don’t feel right. You don’t feel good in training. You feel like you’ve been knocked off track a bit. ‘It’s essential that you provoke a reaction. ‘If nobody is going to react to the three games we’ve just had when all three of them weren’t acceptable...” Ulster lost 41-17 in France in October and so can’t afford another defeat if they expect to advance to the quarter-finals for the first time since 2014. It would be some transformation for a group, so short on confidence, to beat a side currently lying joint-second in the Top14 and then win at Wasps next weekend, but Henderson is not taking a step backwards. ‘It is the most pivotal game of the season so far. ‘I think it’s one that holds the most pressure, definitely, I feel so far in the season. ‘It’ll be an interesting afternoon. They always are, the European games against big French teams. ‘We’ve been frustrated by what we’ve been watching and we have to take that slightly more personally and make sure, within the whole organisation, coaches and players, that we take it more personally.’ Despite fielding a strong line-up at the RDS, they’ve made five changes to the starting team from last week with Craig Gilroy, Louis Ludik and John Cooney coming into the backs. Nick Timoney is in at number eight with Alan O’Connor coming into the second row alongside Henderson. IT’S understood that eir Sport has outbid Sky Sports to become the Irish broadcaster of the Pro14 next season. Eir currently broadcasts highlights from the Pro14 and the new deal is set to become their biggest rights acquisition to date. The new deal could involve a sub-licensing arragement which means that TG4 may still be in a position to provide live coverage of the league. The subscription channel broadcast live coverage of Ireland’s win over the All Blacks from Chicago in 2016 as well as last summer’s Women’s Rugby World Cup.