Henderson: Farrell wanted to test us under squad selection pressure

Iain Henderson refused to accept that any anxiety surrounding the imminent squad selection had impacted on the below-par performance against Samoa

Ireland’s Iain Henderson during the post-Samoa press conference

Iain Henderson praised his Ireland team-mates for casting aside any nervousness about Sunday’s World Cup squad selection and discounted Andy Farrell’s announcement of his 33 players for the tournament as a factor contributing to their disappointing performance against Samoa.

Henderson captained Ireland to a 17-13 win over the Tier-Two nation at Stade Jean Dauger on Saturday night and spoke of the disappointment felt inside the dressing room that they could not have put together a more fluent performance in the Bayonne rain.

Yet the experienced second row refused to accept that any anxiety surrounding the imminent squad selection had impacted on the below-par showing from the number one ranked side in the world. Instead, he chalked it up as yet another test of the Ireland squad’s mettle so beloved of head coach Andy Farrell.

Ireland’s final warm-up before their opening World Cup pool game against Romania in Bordeaux on September 9 and the week’s hot-weather training camp at Stade Jean Dauger that preceded it was specifically designed by Farrell to mirror a typical World Cup match week And the match in front of a distinctly pro-Samoan sell-out Bayonne crowd of 13,000 and played under constant rainfall was exactly what the Ireland boss wanted to expose his players to.

Playing the game hours before Sunday afternoon’s big reveal in Dublin was another Farrell challenge for the squad, the skipper said.

“It's probably one of the adversities that Faz would like us to be tested by,” Henderson said in his post-match media conference.

"That's not the most difficult thing we're going to face over the next number of weeks.

"The group of guys that we have, and we've talked about this before as a coaching staff and squad, it's an incredibly strong group of guys and the guys who've been waiting to find out their fate have probably carried themselves as well as you could have expected them to throughout training.

"The guys who are nervous about selection, who might be carrying that anxiety have trained well; everyone's been on time, been as diligent as possible throughout the reviews, staying on top of stuff.

"It's been a well-prepped Test week for us, so hat's off to those guys who've been prepping so well.

"I think it's not that side of things that affected us today, it was a handful of other things like conditions, probably great pressure brought by Samoa."

Henderson’s reaction to the performance was a mix of “mostly disappointment” and satisfaction that victory was secured in trying circumstances.

“Obviously there's a few silver linings in there but we didn't complete our game-plan the way we wanted to, but at the same time we were happy to get the win."

Asked what those silver linings were, Henderson replied: “To get away with the win, there was a handful of times where I thought there were phases of play with the game plan we want to play.

"A lot of that first half, we managed the territory well. It was something we talked about doing. We saw for both teams, conditions were tough.

"There was a handful of times our lineout defence worked well, but on the flip-side of that I thought Samoa's lineout defence was pretty good as well.

"It was encouraging to see a couple of scrums going well towards the end of the game, I know guys would be tough on themselves about a couple of those set-pieces towards the start of the game and mainly for us to talk in the changing-room at half-time, collect ourselves and go out and get the win in the second-half were the silver linings."

Henderson also spoke of his reaction to watching long-time team-mate Cian Healy hobble out of the game just 20 minutes in with a calf injury that threatens to deny the veteran loosehead prop with 125 Ireland caps his chance of going to a fourth World Cup.

"I've felt it a handful of times this campaign, it's worse when it's a team-mate but even watching other guys from other nations who are looking to play at a World Cup, whether it's their first, second or third, pick up an injury it's not nice.

"It's a crescendo of hard work over four years and to see that pulled away from someone in the dying minutes of that four-year cycle is not nice.

"Again, it's the game we've all signed up to and, again, that's the reason what we do is so special, it means so much to us because it's so fragile sometimes."