Henderson convinced that this can be third time lucky

WE GO AGAIN: Iain Henderson. Pic: ©INPHO/Dan Sheridan

Never won a quarter-final. That’s a short sentence with an extraordinarily long tail. 

It has wrapped itself around the psyche of Irish rugby for decades now, the grip tightening every four years after another failed expedition to what each squad hoped at the time would be the Promised Land of a semi-final and maybe even beyond.

There’s no way of knowing how this sits with the current players. Or if it does at all. There is a theory that the Irish famine has left a collective mental scar on the population that might still even now be in the process of healing, but how much is generational hurt a factor when it comes to sport?

Does the Ship of Theseus thought experiment apply here? As in, how can this still be the same Ireland if every one of the team’s component parts have been stripped away and replaced anew down the years? 

Defeats like those to the Wallabies in 1991, Wales in 2011 and even New Zealand four years ago belong to different times.

Does 22-year-old Joe McCarthy care a fig for any of this? Only 13 of this Ireland squad featured in the quarter-final defeat to the All Blacks at this stage four years ago. Conor Murray has played in the last four World Cup quarter-finals, Keith Earls played a part in three. Johnny Sexton and Iain Henderson have fallen in two. That’s it.

The past? Maybe it really is a different country, a relic of only minor interest. So Henderson put it this week when he was asked to think back on the first of his two defeats in the last eight of this tournament, against Argentina in 2015, when an injury-ravaged Ireland was beaten and beaten well.

“That World Cup, the team that was playing was relatively experienced. I felt going out we had belief in what we could do, but had we seen it done before from that particular group of players? Probably not, whereas right now I feel that the squad that we have, we have a lot more confidence throughout 1-33 in our squad now.

“Again, I tend to believe if there was any 15 picked out of that we would have a fairly confident bet that the team would be able to pull it off,” he explained. 

“That’s pretty much how this team has been built in this last, sort of, two to three-year period versus that of that earlier group.” 

Pretty much half of Andy Farrell’s squad is experiencing a World Cup for the first time here in France. If those eleven players carry any mental baggage into tonight’s game at Stade de France then it is likely buried deep in the recesses of their minds. This is not to say that the enormity of the occasion will be lost on them.

Henderson is one of 17 players in this squad who is already in his thirties. The temptation may be to think that this cohort has to lead by example and chaperone less experienced colleagues through a week of such import. 

Henderson gave that some thought and then dismissed it. This is not 2025 or 2019, was the message. This group is wired differently.

“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 fill guys with more belief and understand that this is part of what they've been working for the last four years.” 

The language used in both camps this week has been interesting. The Kiwis have pushed the mantra that this is a ‘final’. 

Ireland have talked about embracing their status as world number one with Andy Farrell using terms like ‘big boy’ rugby and framing all this as something to chase rather than something to fear.

Seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary!

The thought of not being here in Paris and its outskirts for at least one more week simply isn’t being entertained. 

This could, after all, be Johnny Sexton’s last game of rugby but even that possibility wasn’t broached with the coach, the captain or any of the players on Thursday such was the air of positivity they exuded.

History is for making, not regurgitating.