Robbie Henshaw: Too soon to be thinking of France

Another week, another yarn about Robbie Henshaw’s future.

It was the player’s appearance on national radio that instigated the latest bout of speculation. Will he stay at Connacht or will it be a switch to Leinster? Who knows? He confirmed nothing beyond the fact it is too soon to be thinking about a move to France.

It will likely be some months before his next contract is finalised, but Leinster could do with some good news now. Defeat in Bath on Saturday all but condemned them to an early exit from the Champions Cup and theirs is a squad that could do with some fresh blood.

“Anyone could do with a big-name signing and Robbie is one of those guys who is a very exciting player at the moment,” said forwards coach John Fogarty. “Anyone would be happy to have him, we would be happy to have him.”

Fogarty made the point that there are other ways of imbuing new life into the group and he pointed to the impact made by youngsters such as Josh Van Der Flier and James Tracy three days ago.

Yet those players are in the infancy of their senior career. Henshaw is young, but he is fully formed as a professional.

Luke Fitzgerald, whose designs of playing more at inside-centre would be imperilled by his arrival, admitted as much.

“Age is a big thing, he’s a young guy,” said the Blackrock man.

“Physically, he has great attributes. He’s a big guy, tough, up for the fight, which is a big thing with young guys, because it does take a lot of time to get used to the big collisions, especially at 12.

“He really toughed it out against Argentina [in the World Cup quarter-final], which is a good sign of a player. He took some bad knocks and big tackles, but he took it well and stayed on the pitch when things weren’t going well for us.”

There were other plus points listed besides — footwork, defence, positioning, handling, kicking, his spatial awareness — and yet Fitzgerald mirrored Fogarty’s point by insisting there is a decent bunch of guys at the club already.

“The guys here at the club, the players we have here, speaks for itself,” he said. “We’ve got great players here already. I don’t know whether the club are pitching to him or not, but it sounds like they are.

“I’m probably not the guy to be asking. What we’ve got going on here with the systems we have in place, the guys who are coaching us, the guys at the top, it’s an excellent set-up to be successful and to further themselves as a rugby player.”