Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Games like this are what every player wants to be part of
HENDERSON READY FOR ‘MASSIVE’ TEST
IAIN HENDERSON knows what it’s like to miss the party but he’ll be front and centre of it in Tokyo today.
Henderson sat at home injured three years ago, watching Ireland beat the All Blacks in Chicago for the first time.
Two weeks later, along with Peter O’mahony and Sean O’brien, he got his chance in Dublin.
“We were going out saying, ‘Flip, it’s our time to have a crack at them now, everyone else was over there having a go’,” the Ulsterman, 27, recalled.
“That actually riled us up more, the fact that we didn’t get a chance to play there.”
But New Zealand were on a revenge mission and brutally delivered, something that Johnny Sexton predicts won’t happen today due to the law changes that came in following that game.
It wasn’t until last November that Henderson got to taste victory against the world champions, when he came off the bench in the 16-9 win at the Aviva Stadium.
He had also been a bench player during his first World Cup four years ago, behind Paul O’connell, Devin Toner and Donnacha Ryan in the pecking order.
“Those players were people who I always watched growing up and I learned an awful lot from them,” he said.
“Now the other second rows in this squad are a similar age or younger than me and it’s unbelievable to see the workrate that they want to put in, the amount that they want to learn. That’s massively exciting and gives me massive confidence. And that’s not only in the second row department, that’s across the pitch.”
With O’connell retired and Toner and Ryan not in Japan, new Ulster skipper Henderson has emerged as a key figure for Joe Schmidt’s team as James Ryan’s partner.
“Everyone wants to be involved in the crunch games,” he admitted. “You might not feel as comfortable in a higher