Ulster captain Iain Henderson knows what it takes to get to the pinnacle of rugby.
A celebrated Ireland international and British and Irish Lion, Henderson has been performing at the top level for over a decade now and is better placed than anyone to help mould a new generation of Ulster players.
But that’s a process that doesn’t happen overnight.
The last two weeks have been very painful for Ulster but there are signs of improvement as Saturday’s first half suggests. But despite feeling frustrated after Saturday’s loss, Henderson was delighted to see a big improvement from last week’s loss to Toulouse.
“Yeah. Frustrating but we talked about what we wanted to see from the game after last week,” said Henderson.
“We wanted to see improvement. I definitely thought there was a marked improvement in the first 50 to 60 minutes. That’s something we can build on, but again, very disappointing in that last period from 50, 60 minutes onwards.
“Like we know where we are as a squad and we know we have to keep building and that’s what we spoke about afterwards. We’re on a journey to improve as a team and things like this are going to happen against the best teams in Europe.”
Henderson praised the application and progression of the young Ulster squad as they work towards to where they want to be. But the experienced skipper knows that there is still a long way to go on this journey.
“You can see some of the younger guys improving and that training is getting better. We’re solidifying better habits throughout the squad.
“But are we there yet? We’re nowhere near where we want to be. But going forward we have a vision and a plan in place of what we want to do.”
Over the last three weeks Ulster have squared up to arguably three of the best sides in Europe in the form of Leinster, Toulouse and Bordeaux-Bégles.
It’s safe to say that on the whole, it hasn’t been a pleasant experience for his teammates. But as he explains, Henderson feels that this short-term pain can bare long term gain in the years to come.
“Obviously, no-one wants to ship 100 points in two games. But I’m going to judge us on how we react to that, internally and externally.
“There’s always disappointment of losing big games, especially in the manner of how we’ve lost our last two.
“But that’s part of the learning process and that’s part of the pain you have to go through to get better and ensuring that a lot of our players get exposure to these teams at the top level and that will definitely stand to them, especially to those couple of guys getting their first caps tonight.
“I thought Zac (Ward) did really well. Telf (Rory Telfer) probably didn’t get enough to show what he can actually do. But those guys like last week too, getting exposure at that level, it’s all part of the learning process and ideally get better.”
