When getting word of his first call-up to the Lions four years ago, Iain Henderson was famously in the middle of a spot of gardening, forced to leave his lawn only half cut when news filtered through that he’d be wearing the famous red jersey out in New Zealand.
There were no such distractions this time around, Henderson was on the bus to Limerick with Ulster ahead of tonight’s Rainbow Cup clash against Munster as Warren Gatland revealed his squad to take on the Springboks this summer.
As such, it was thanks only to the strength of team-mate Andy Warwick’s Wi-Fi service that he would learn he’d made the cut for a second tour of duty, the good word coming after the tension of the moment saw his alphabet skills temporarily abandon him.
“It was being watched on a whole load of different phones down the bus and I was sitting down the back with four or five others,” the Ulster skipper recalled of the moment he got the long-awaited news.
“With being split into two buses now (thanks to Covid-19 restrictions) everyone has their own seat, socially distant, so Andy Warwick was in the seat in front of me and had it on his phone. I was peering over and he held it up for me. I was watching the names come through and every time a name was called that was one of the less expected ones there’d be a bit of chatter and then people would miss hearing the next (name).
“Going through all the players, I got to Tadhg Furlong, and you’re thinking, ‘Which letter comes next?’ You hear a ‘G’ and you are there wondering ‘does ‘G’ come before ‘H?’
“Your head is all mixed up and going around.
“It was exciting as the tension was building and then there was just a bit of a cheer when my name was read out.”
Friends and family were not long getting in touch with the 29-year-old especially pleased to be able to share such a success with his wife Suzanne and their two young children, neither of whom were born last time around when the pair were still in the middle of planning their wedding.
“My wife was delighted, I was on the phone with her first and she definitely sounded a lot more nervous and shaken than I had felt,” he said. “I was on the phone with my brother and my parents then so it was great.
“The last time I was young, I wasn’t married, I didn’t have any kids. With the kids it is definitely different, they don’t have a clue what it means but some day they’ll know and I’ll be proud and thankful to say they were a part of that journey.”
Once the feelings of elation and relief around making it onto the plane have subsided, his focus will turn to ensuring he returns home with a Test cap.
By the end of tour last time around there had been a string of eye-catching performances in mid-week games but he couldn’t force his way into the matchday 23 to face the All Blacks after a jet-lagged outing in the opener against New Zealand Provincial Barbarians.
With the benefit of that experience, the 63-times capped second-row will know the importance of a quick start when the games begin against Japan in Murrayfield on June 26, especially when battling in a position where the depth is such that his Irish engine-room colleague James Ryan did not make the cut.
“The plan was to be a Test starter last time too, but obviously that did not go to plan,” he joked.
“I think the last tour we really didn’t hit the ground running, we edged our way into it and that maybe put me on the back foot from the start.
“I will hopefully have a few games under my belt by the end of this season so I can take a bit of form with me into the tour.”
Belfast Telegraph