Injured Lion keen to make up lost time

After a frustrating season spent mainly on the sidelines because of injury,Rob Henderson tells Gerry Thornley he is eager to finish offhis season on a high with Munster. Playing through the pain."It was the third Test in a one-all series with the Lions. Againstthe world champions. And in the Sydney Olympic Stadium."

He likes to come home from a hard day at the training ground, open the back door to his country cottage, listen to the river running past, unwind, talk about the day and have a bite to eat. Meet Robert Henderson. Party animal. Wild child.

Initially, Rob Henderson's move from Wasps last summer raised a few eyebrows. Could the fast-living Hendo really hack the tranquility of a country cottage retreat outside Limerick? In that context, at least, Henderson's move to Munster has been a success. "I hate to shatter the illusion, but I'm not actually a mad socialite," he says.

Take sun-kissed Tuesday as an example. Henderson stopped off at a Co-Op shop on the way home from training in Cork, bought himself a barbecue and invited the neighbours - including Martin Cahill and the Clohessys among others - around to his home in Castleconnell that backs onto the Shannon. It's not something he could have done living next to a railtrack in suburban Teddington unless, he says, he invited the passengers from Waterloo.

Henderson's wife Angie - currently in Namibia on a six-week African safari - took a little longer to settle, but has grown to love it too. Right place, right time, Castleconnell has been a welcome change of pace.

"Living in London is great and you can do whatever you want to do within the space of about five minutes," Henderson admits. "By the same token, it's just too quick, too busy, too cluttered. It's very difficult in London, after you've been training all day, to sit in the car for an hour-and-a-half in traffic at 10 miles an hour, and then get home and unwind when there's so much going on, do you know what I mean? There's very little down time, which is one of the things I need."

Most of all, he loves his "idyllic" new home; a yellow, two-storey, double-fronted cottage. "The village is great, too, small and discreet. No one really bothers you there. We've very good friends just around the corner, Claw is living two miles one way and Martin Cahill is one mile the other way, and everyone seems eager to help. It's like a proper community again, whereas in London I couldn't tell you who my neighbour was two doors down."

Viewed in a rugby context, though, Henderson admits the move has worked out disappointingly so far.

"More stop-stop than stop-start," he says of a frustrating, injury-plagued season. "Whenever you join somewhere new you want to make an impression as soon as you can." Nothing helps a player's form and fitness more than matches, he points out.

After the ravages of last summer's Lions tour, when he played with a knee injury in the third Test with the help of tablets and injections, the recuperating process was unlikely to come easy. But then he puts you in his shoes. "It was the third Test in a one-all series with the Lions. Against the world champions. And in the Sydney Olympic Stadium." Point taken.

In a Q & A in the Guardian four years ago, Henderson stated that the absence of a Lions tour was his greatest unfulfilled ambition. That having been handsomely fulfilled, he likes to think he proved a few people wrong.

"At the same time, you do get the odd TV or newspaper pundit that can't quite see the wood from the trees and still has to hang on to old theories. Guys that are a bit out of touch with the game."

Henderson underwent a cartilage operation within three days of returning from Australia. However, he says he hardly thinks about the Lions tour now. "That's the great thing about ambitions. As soon as you achieve one, you can always replace it with another one. I want to play in the next World Cup with Ireland."

This desire is made all the stronger after he just missed out on the last one. So severe was that knockback that Henderson seriously contemplated retirement, and is possibly still a little bitter about it, but for all that he is big enough to admit that "maybe it was a good knock to my confidence".

It leaves him with plenty to play for next season. "The targets are to try and help get Young Munster back into the first division, to help Munster in the Celtic League, interpros and European Cup, and hopefully to get back into the Ireland squad."

Typical of his season with Young Munster, he came on at half-time in his first game after injury last November at 14-13 down to Terenure, who then went on to win 31-13. Relegation was a sour pill to swallow, but he has no intention of moving.

Perhaps pushing himself too much too soon this season, two comebacks were aborted by groin tears, and after the second he admits that he let himself go a little.

"I had a bit of a sabbatical there when things were getting to me. Maybe my focus wasn't completely on rugby for a while due to the frustrations of getting injured, but fortunately Fergal (O'Callaghan, the Munster fitness director), Mike (McGurn, the Irish fitness director) and Kirsty (Peacock, the Munster physio), and all the medical team, have helped me sort myself out and get the body back together again. Now I've got the hunger and desire back for it."

Henderson lost a stone between tearing his groin against England and making his sole international start of the season, in the defeat to France, and is now lighter than he's been in three years. The fear had been that, like a boxer who leaves his best work in the gym, Henderson had overdone it, though he disputes the criticism of his performance.

"I was a little bit disappointed with some of the knocks I got from certain quarters but at the same time it goes with the territory of a poor team performance."

Nevertheless, he points out that he was second to Simon Easterby in the tackle count with 16 and felt fit over the 80 minutes.

For Munster, his season has been only marginally less frustrating. Last Friday against Leinster was only his fourth start, of which only one was at his favoured inside centre - a promising hour against Leinster in the Celtic League final coming undone with his first torn groin.

"The game's evolved and it doesn't bother me whether I'm inside or outside, or even on the wing. If you're short I'll drop in to 10, or loose-head as some people have remarked. But you're only really in your position for set-piece moves anyway."

A more analytical approach comes with experience, though in Henderson's case that process has been accelerated by a budding journalistic career. Aside from appearances as a BBC television pundit while injured (he flies out from Cork at 7.0 a.m. tomorrow for some more BBC punditry on the Leicester-Llanelli semi-final), he's also done interviews for Rugby Special and he currently pens a column with Rugby News magazine.

"I've made no secret of it, it's one of the things I'd like to get into after playing rugby. I think it's gone quite well and helped keep me sane while I have been injured."

Not that it's hogging his attention just yet.

"If I can get on the park for the (European Cup) semi-final and the final, and play what is effectively an interpro final against Ulster in Ravenhill, that would put me in good stead to get selected for the New Zealand tour, and that would be a good end to a frustrating year, and a great start for next season, which is where my focus is now. I've got to concentrate on the games coming up, but then ultimately coming back next year bigger and stronger."

Journalism remains a pleasant diversion for the moment then, and with that trademark glint in his eye, he vows: "There's a couple of good years left in me yet."