HENDERSON LOOKS BEYOND TOUR AS ALL BLACKS AWAIT

IRELAND’S tour of South Africa ended in disappointment but second-row Iain Henderson is targeting more history in November as he sets his sights on New Zealand. Joe Schmidt’s side beat the Springboks on home soil for the first time in the opening Test but could not back that up in the subsequent Tests as they came up short by six points at both Ellis Park and Port Elizabeth. Ireland return home after losing the series 2-1 but can take positives from the influx of new faces to the camp including new caps Tiernan O’Halloran, Quinn Roux, Seán Reidy and Matt Healy. Henderson started all three Tests and expressed his disappointment at coming up short after creating a host of opportunities at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium. Ireland’s players now head off for their holidays at the end of a long season, but the Ulster lock already has one eye on the world champions who they face in Chicago on November 5, before Steve Hansen’s side come to Dublin two weeks later. Ireland have never beaten the All Blacks, but Henderson says the time has come. ‘One thing we can take from this is that as a side, even being a young side, we’ve made history once on this tour and there’s no reason why we can’t do it again,’ he said. ‘No Irish team has ever beaten the All Blacks and I don’t see any reason why we can’t. ‘We’ve got two opportunities to go and do it and in Chicago we can look to turn them over there and, if that happens, we’ll look to build on it the next week and the next week and go from there.’ For all the progress made in squad building in the absence Johnny Sexton, Seán O’Brien, Rob Kearney and Tommy Bowe, Ireland feel they left an opportunity to claim a historic series win behind. Having won the opening game despite CJ Stander’s red card, they let a 16-point lead slip in the second Test and spurned a couple of tryscoring opportunities in the decider, finishing the game hammering on the Bok line. ‘It’s a massive shame,’ Henderson (below) said. ‘Nobody goes out there believing that we can’t win, we went out there and gave it everything. ‘Fair play to South Africa, they defended brilliantly and kept us off their line.’ Schmidt used all 32 players over the tour and remained competitive, and Henderson believes the future is bright on the back of the work done. ‘There’s so many class players coming through. It’s good to see a strong representation from Connacht, Matt Healy and Tiernan both doing really, really well. ‘Kieran Marmion’s sitting there, Eoin Reddan has been fantastic for Ireland over the last number of years but Marmion’s sitting there ready to go. ‘He knows what’s going on and he’ll come through in the November series and do a really good job. ‘It’s fantastic. We’re missing a few big names and people would have been sceptical when we left Dublin, but fair play to the young guys for stepping up and putting their hands up.’