Ciarán Kennedy Reports from Paris

ANDY FARRELL RARELY gets a selection call wrong and against Scotland last weekend, Iain Henderson became the latest to justify his call into the starting team. 

The Ulster lock was a surprise pick ahead of James Ryan and delivered an impressive, commanding display in the Ireland second row. With Ryan injured for tonight’s quarter-final clash with New Zealand, Henderson again gets the nod in an unchanged Ireland starting XV.

“Obviously, James (Ryan) and I are very close, he is a very good friend of mine and that extends outside professional things,” Henderson says.

“So getting in touch, and sitting back down yesterday, he has a massive experience in trying to come up with plans for excellent opposition, be it in a club game or international.

“So like I’ve mentioned before at prior press conferences that I’ve been at, this team works incredibly well as a unit irrespective of who is starting, be it Joe (McCarthy) sitting down and chatting through what he thinks they are going to bring, or sitting down with Bairdy or Beirney or James we are fully behind each other, all together on this and I am sure we will have a final desire to get it done.

“In terms of New Zealand, obviously they have a massively, probably experienced pack.

Henderson speaking to the media during the week. Dan Sheridan / INPHO Dan Sheridan / INPHO / INPHO

“They have a number of really good athletes in there, guys who are good at reading line-out but we have come up against opposition like this before, and for ways of attacking we hope to come up with a decent plan that will see us succeed in that area.”

The 31-year-old is playing at his third World Cup. Henderson was on the pitch for Ireland’s quarter-final exits to Argentina in 2015 and New Zealand four years later, and as part of Ireland’s leadership group, he’ll take an active role in helping some of the squad’s younger players prepare for tonight’s knock-out tie.

“I’m not necessarily sure I’ll be imparting wisdom but a huge, huge part of what we do and what we try to bring as a squad is belief in what we’ve done in the past and we honestly haven’t spoken about the last two World Cups.

This is on the whole a different group, it’s definitely a hugely different feel, it feels like a different management, we approach the game in a different way on match weeks.

“Obviously having had experience of losses and the feelings after that, that’s probably something slightly different, but coming into this, this is no different to the guys going into a crunch game in the Six Nations to win a Grand Slam or a load of the boys going in to try to win a series away in New Zealand or winning a third Test match at home in a series against one of the big southern hemisphere teams.

“So those are the experiences we would be emphasising the guys to draw upon.

“This team has been put in difficult positions before when they had to come up with the solution, they’ve had to come up with the result and that’s kind of where we like to take things, to kind of fill guys with more belief and understand that this is part of what they’ve been working for the last four years.”

Henderson in action against Scotland. Billy Stickland / INPHO Billy Stickland / INPHO / INPHO

There was a point where Henderson’s World Cup looked in doubt, having needed surgery on a fractured forearm in March. He returned to action during the summer warm-up games and has looked sharp in France, putting in an impressive 80-minute shift against Scotland last weekend.

“Yeah, body’s holding up well and obviously a big 80 minutes for a number of boys last week, so Faz and the management have been really good over this last week, these last few days, just making sure everyone is getting through the training, that we’re getting proper rest and recovery, getting through everything properly.

“I think every rugby player goes through low points throughout injuries, through bits and pieces whether or not they’d admit it or not, I’d say the majority of players go through it and would have definite ideas through the bumpy road in their head about hanging their boots up.

“Not for me anymore, and if you were to ask my wife, like, it probably happens more often than it should, you come in and you get angry and give off about a few things and then a few hours later you reset and you’re ready to go again for the following weekend.

“And she’s forever slagging me whenever I come home, saying, ‘I’m not cut out for this any more’. She goes, ‘wait until a few days’ time and see how you feel about that then’.

“That’s the way it goes, there’s highs and lows.”