Rugby Union | Blogs | Paper Round

All the latest from the world of rugby

« Steele focus | | Idiotic drivel from the rugby Kremlin »

October 27, 2010

Posted on 10/27/2010

Henson lacks defining quality of a star

Gavin Henson he would never have spent his late 20s ballroom dancing if he had belief on the rugby pitch according to James Lawton © Getty Images

Writing in The Independent, James Lawton believes Gavin Henson lacks the belief that could have made him one of the greats.

"One of the more poignant aspects of Henson's situation is that at 28 he is a year older than his compatriot Barry John, arguably the greatest rugby player of them all, when he turned his back on the game a year after being crowned King John during a mesmerising tour of New Zealand. The comparison is savage because, psychologically, John was everything that Henson isn't – or ever likely to be. When he attended his first Welsh team session, John was asked by the older, and firmly established, Gareth Edwards how he would like the ball to be delivered, long or short. "You throw it, Gareth, I'll catch it," said the luminous neophyte.
"Henson was never going to dull the memory of John's genius but if he had showed, say five years ago, some of that self-confidence, the idea that he would be tentatively reconsidering a return to the game in 2010 would have been incredible. In 2005 he had a passionate rugby nation in his thrall. He was man of the match when the English were beaten and he landed a 48-metre penalty in the last moments. He had nerves of steel then, if not the deepest ambition.

"As late as the spring of last year Warren Gatland, the Welsh coach and assistant of the 2009 Lions in South Africa, was attempting to keep the door open for a reluctant protégé. He asked him to tour with Wales to keep alive a chance to make an impact with the Lions which was denied him four years earlier in New Zealand. Henson's mind and heart wasn't in it and now you have to wonder how deeply committed he is to possibly his last chance of exploiting gifts for which so many of his peers would give so much."

Feedback