Joe Schmidt: I didn’t want Henshaw to score try

Joe Schmidt underlined just how much Robbie Henshaw will be missed by Ireland after admitting he did not want the centre to score the try that led his season-ending injury last Saturday.

Henshaw, 24, underwent a surgical procedure on his shoulder after injuring himself in the act of scoring his second try in the Six Nations win over Italy in Dublin last weekend.

He will now miss the rest of the championship and Ireland head coach Schmidt yesterday revealed that as Henshaw was running towards the try line, he had said to his coaching staff “don’t score Robbie”.

“A lot of wingers are more likely to do that shoulder injury that Robbie did just because they dive in at corners and someone lands on top of them,” Schmidt said.

“As he was going in to score that I had a very bad feeling, and I said in the box, as he was going in to score it, ‘don’t score Robbie.’

“We didn’t need the try, we need him, and it’s not very often a coach is saying that to a player quietly in a coaching box but it is what it is, and as I say, we will get really excited about the players we do have because we know how hard they are going to work on Saturday week.”

Speaking after Ireland’s open training session in front of 4,000 supporters at Buccaneers RFC in Athlone when Munster hooker Niall Scannell was a notable addition to a 21-man squad, the Ireland boss added that Henshaw faces a lengthy spell on the sidelines.

“It was something we feared after the game, just with the mechanism of injury but you always hope against hope that something may not have happened and you get through without any serious injury but unfortunately, that shoulder isn’t going to be good for another three, four months.”

On a more positive note for the Irish title bid, which continues against Wales at the Aviva Stadium in eight days, Schmidt said he thought tighthead prop Tadhg Furlong and lock Iain Henderson would both be fit to face Warren Gatland’s side.

Both players felt tightness in their hamstrings with Furlong pulling up in the third minute of the 56-19 win over Italy while Henderson did not emerge for the second half and both were rehabbing pitchside in Athlone during the training session with Ireland’s U20 squad.

Furlong, Schmidt said, “had gone really well” while Henderson was “pretty much 100%”.

“At the same time, James Ryan has also made really good progress so those two are back in the mix.

“Tadhg ran 75% speed today and did change of direction. He’s not far away from potentially being able to train fully on Tuesday.”