Ex-Wasp Henderson confident Munster can weather swarm

LONG before his Munster life, Rob Henderson was enjoying a career with London Irish. Then one day, in 1997, he received a phone call with the voice on the line wondering, “if I’d be interested in filling the gap”.

It was the commencement of a fruitful and enjoyable spell with cross- town rivals Wasps, that propelled him onto a Lions Tour to Australia, and to Munster.

“We went on to reach three finals, we won two of those and the league as well,” he recalls, before stressing that sentiment takes a back seat on Sunday.

“You have to put friendships aside when you get on the pitch, but afterwards I’m looking forward to meeting with a few of the lads and we can sit down and have a pint and discuss old times and new times.”

Lawrence Dallaglio is amongst his friends, but his first call when the pairings were finalised was to out-half Alex King.

“I rang him at the weekend when it had all panned out, but he was away at a christening in Austria, taking a bit of down time and trying to rest the body and the mind.”

Hammered by Munster (49-22) in their first season in the competition, the Londoners quickly grew accustomed to life in the European Cup.

Henderson was in the side that lost 25-18 to Brive at Loftus Road in 1998 and to Northampton (25-22) in 1999 at Franklins Gardens.

Both of those defeats were at the quarter-final stage.

“We were the only unbeaten team in the competition when we played Brive,” he recalled ruefully.

“Maybe a bit of inexperience caught up with us. We had home advantage and big support so that defeat, the first for a home team in the quarter-finals, was bitterly disappointing.

“Wasps are such an ambitious club that they wanted to progress, not just in domestic competition, but Europe as well.

“There were a few other disappointments, but I missed the Northampton game because of injury.”

There’s a lot of sentimental talk doing the rounds that Munster, after all their near misses, deserve to be recognised as the best team in Europe.

Henderson views things differently.

“You can think you’re the best team in Europe, but until you win the European Cup, you are one of the best, but no more.

“Wasps have won cups, leagues, the Parker Pen, the grand final, so this would be the last thing for them to win. They’ve always been a team that gets better as the season goes on.”

Henderson revels in the hype surrounding this game, more so as this is Munster’s first home semi-final. A fact which could decide the outcome.

“The side suffering fewer nerves will probably win the game. Fear is a personal thing for a lot of players, fear of your own performance, you always want to do your best, you don’t want to let yourself or anybody else down, especially at this late stage.”