Iain Henderson might be one of Ireland’s rising stars but the Ulster man knows he still has a lot to learn about the nitty gritty of Test match forward play
The second row was one of the outstanding performers in Ireland’s 16-10 defeat by Wales at the Aviva Stadium yesterday, scoring his side’s only try with a bruising charge under the posts and generally making his presence felt around the park in one of his finest days out in the green jersey.
His place in Joe Schmidt’s 31-man World Cup squad is secure, but Henderson has quickly moved into contention for a starting role alongside Paul O’Connell, and the 23-year-old is eager to learn the final pieces of the puzzle from the likes of Munster legend.
“I could definitely learn from a good few locks around the place, players like Alun Wyn Jones and Paulie, those players that do the nitty gritty work,’ admitted Henderson. “That’s maybe something I need to work on in my game. Coming from the back row, where you’re more of a dynamic, carrying player, maybe I need to get my head stuck in a few more dirtier places.”
While Henderson stood out on a personal level, Ireland on the whole delivered a disjointed display that lacked discipline, something Schmidt is sure to focus on between now and the opening game of the World Cup against Canada.
“We came in half-time and realised our discipline hadn’t been good enough,” Henderson said. “We needed to cut that out in the second half, which we didn’t do – the penalty count at half-time was 8-4 and it ended up at 15-6 or 15-8, which just isn’t good enough by our standards.
“We’ve won the last two Six Nations by being one of the best disciplined teams and even against Scotland we weren’t as we should have been. That’s a massive work-on for us that we can take into the England game and hopefully on to the World Cup.”
