Why the grass is always greener for Henderson
AT ONE stage during this World Cup the business of growing grass became something of a concern, with the ground staff at Villa Park working around the clock to ensure that the playing surface was suitable for rugby after staging a football match only a few days earlier.
This might not be of much interest to the majority of players who remain in the tournament but Iain Henderson would have found it fascinating. After all, the Ireland lock spent his day off this week quite literally watching grass grow.
‘I had a lovely wee trip up to Builth Wells with Rory Best, up to a friend’s farm,’ he said. ‘Jack McGrath went up with us too.’
To look at grass? ‘Grass-growing, yeah,’ he said. ‘Just had a wee outing to scope it out, see what’s going on. Rotations of livestock on areas of grass to maximise efficiency of growth from a certain plot of land, I assume that would be the general gist of it.’
It would be wrong, never mind foolish, to suggest that this 6ft 6in 23-year-old is something of a grass geek. Especially when he was invited on this week’s outing by Best, his Ireland colleague and a farmer back home. But Henderson does sound like a man who has a degree in mathematics and he is already open to the idea of a career in farming when he stops playing rugby.
All of which is a welcome distraction when he goes into this afternoon’s World Cup quarterfinal against Argentina at the Millennium Stadium, as the replacement for Ireland’s inspirational but injured captain, Paul O’Connell. ‘If you weren’t able to switch off you’d end up going crazy,’ he said.
He appears remarkably relaxed about filling the O’Connell void. ‘Obviously Paul is a huge loss and it’s massively disappointing, but I think I’m happy enough setting that to one side,’ he says. ‘I’ve played with Dev (Toner) a good bit in the second row and I’m comfortable there with him. And Paul was going to be retiring sooner or later, whether it be last weekend or the end of the tournament. So come the Six Nations I’m sure we would have had similar questions.
‘It’s maybe come a little sooner than expected but I’m confident enough between myself and Dev that we will get the job done.’
It helps that he was as outstanding as he was in the second half against France last weekend. Never mind in other games during this tournament.
‘Coming off the bench is not always an easy thing to do,’ he said. ‘Having to read the game when you’re on the bench; then the lactic acid building up in your legs when you’re trying to get up to speed with the game. So I was thankful I was able to come on after half-time, when everyone else has had a wee sit down.’
Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Ireland’s display against the French was the way Joe Schmidt’s understudies responded to the loss not just of O’Connell but Johnny Sexton and Peter O’Mahony. Ian Madigan also shone.
Another such performance and they make history by becoming the first Ireland side to reach the World Cup semi-finals. ‘I think everyone is feeling the hype building slowly but surely,’ said Henderson. ‘But so many of the squad were here four years ago, in a similar situation, and they’ve said “you can’t let any of it get to your head”. Hence the need for the odd distraction.