Alex McHenry: 'It was shocking, lives turned upside down'

Alex McHenry still can’t quite get his head around the Channel Island ructions of September 28 last year. The midfielder had giddily packed his bag the night before ahead of an 8am Jersey airport assembly for a Premiership Rugby Cup match at Cornish Pirates.

However, instead of a leisurely Thursday morning flight to England for the fixture in Penzance, he was woken by a 6am text message informing him of an emergency meeting an hour later at the Reds clubhouse. Jolted by what he read, he was immediately knocking on the bedroom doors of housemates Thom Smith, Peter Sullivan and Eoghan Clarke telling them they needed to get up and quickly head down the road with him.

What followed was cataclysmic. Harry Viljoen’s squad were brutally told that the business had gone into liquidation, that they no longer had jobs and that the club would not defend its title in the 2023/24 Championship… all this just 12 days after they visited Bath and stylishly put a half-dozen tries on their PRC hosts.

The sudden upheaval rattled. Some players landed on their feet, namely the likes of Saracens recruit James Hadfield and John Hawkins at Newcastle. Others, though, quit playing and got on with their lives without rugby. McHenry? The soon-to-be 27-year-old is now hunkered in Sydney contemplating whether to stay in the game or finally start making use of the economics degree he left Cork with many moons ago.

It was back to his parents' house on Leeside where he initially sheltered after getting his P45. By November, he was in Dax and after his stint ended with a Pro D2 play-off defeat at Grenoble in May, he was on the move again.

This time to the other side of the world where a connection through ex-Munster centre Dan Goggin resulted in signing for Eastern Suburbs, the Rose Bay club who finished their season on August 31 winning a Shute Shield title for the first time in 55 years.

We will have more about what the future might hold for the transient McHenry, but the first anniversary of Jersey Reds going to the wall is our conversation starter. At the time, there was no grave inkling of collapse. Yes, salary payment had been delayed by a few hours the previous month but the shakedown that emerged that September Thursday morning at the Stade Santander International pavilion was unimaginable.

“Absolutely nothing,” recalled McHenry to RugbyPass, still gobsmacked by the life-changing revelations that emerged at the Jersey clubhouse. “The month beforehand our paycheque got delayed a couple of hours and chairman Mark Morgan came in, sat us down and said, ‘Look lads, there is nothing to worry about. There is plenty of money in the reserves. We’ve seen the money this morning. Nothing to be panicked about.”

Not so. “We were playing Cornish and due to meet at the airport at 8am. I woke up at six and saw a text on my phone saying, ‘Lads, emergency meeting 7am’. I’d to knock on the doors of Thom, Peter and Eoghan and said, ‘Lads, you need to wake up, we need to go to the club’.

“Straightaway your mind jumps to the worst, someone is after dying or something along those lines. We came in with our bags packed to go to Cornish but there was just this eerie vibe and we were told the bad news. It was shocking, lives turned upside down.

"Lads were living in Jersey with mortgages and families. You were not getting paid an awful lot of money in the Champ. You were going paycheque to paycheque and you were now going, what am I going to do now to pay my mortgage or pay by child’s creche fees or whatever it is? It was absolutely ludicrous what went down in the end.

“It was very disappointing but you have to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get back on the horse… but it’s mental thinking if you told me a year ago I would be in Australia now after playing a season in France, I would never have believed you. It’s crazy to see. It’s good to see some lads have played on but you have the unfortunate side of a lot of lads having to retire.

“Initially, I was pure shocked. I got onto my agent straightaway and said, ‘We’re folding, can you please get onto every club?’ Then I rang my parents and they were, ‘Jesus, what’s going on? Are you okay financially? Do we need to help you out? How do you get home?’

“I don’t think it really hit me until about six, seven months later when you are looking back and you are, ‘Wow, we had such a special thing going there in Jersey’. For it to be torn up and tossed to the side in an hour at that meeting was mental. Some of those lads I haven’t seen since that day, they were just gone and completely out of your life.”

The irony was that Jersey Reds were originally a career lifeline for McHenry. Despite a decent loan spell at Wasps in late 2021, Johann van Graan released him at Munster for whom he debuted in April 2019 at Benetton. Island life rekindled his rugby love and his first season in St Peter magically ended with the club’s first-ever Championship glory.

“Friends were made for life. I came to Jersey low in confidence in my rugby. I’d been let go from Munster, my boyhood club, and everything I loved was in Munster. To move to the Champ, you were taking a step down a division and it opened my eyes so much. It grew my love for the game again.

“I completely fell in love with the sport again and you had that bit of ownership. It was unbelievable how much everyone bought into the culture; around 40 lads on an island away from their families and we are all in the exact same boat earning very similar paycheques.

“We all really bonded over that and it was the case, this is family now and you did your absolute best for the man next to you. The coaches, Rob Webber and Tom Williams, instilled that in us massively. There was almost that chip-on-the-shoulder attitude for the whole season, that underdog going against the likes of Ealing who were stacked, and we backed ourselves. It’s the fondest memories I have playing rugby, something I will cherish forever.”

A pity the local authorities didn’t feel the same way despite the Reds putting the island on the rugby map with their second-tier title win. “The stadium was full to the brim for the last few games and you saw what it meant to the people. I’m sure it generated business for the island as well and it put Jersey on the map massively.

“We all went on an open-top bus parade and the scenes were just crazy. The fans were proper cheering you on and really happy for us but I don’t think the government saw it that way, so it unfortunately went the other way.”

Another irony for McHenry was that less than two weeks before Jersey went kaput, he was a try-scorer at The Rec, getting one over van Graan, the Bath boss who had pulled the plug on him at Munster. “I remember seeing him before the game. There was a little bit of extra nerves going into it but we were very confident as a team off the back of winning the Championship.

“It was nice to go out that day and really show the world on TV how good we were as a team. I was fortunate to score a try and touch down in front of him. Look, there would be no bad blood at all but it was definitely a nice experience to prove to everyone what we were capable of.”

Fighting through adversity runs in the family; dad John was a professional golfer who often battled to keep his European tour card. “The career I have had has been successful if you put it on paper but there have been incredible lows, incredible mental battles that you have and I suppose my dad had has been through an awful lot of that with golf,” explained McHenry.

“There were highs but deep lows as well and my dad is a great soundboard. My mother was my dad’s right-hand man the whole way through his golf career and seen it all as well. They have been incredible. I’m a resilient person and after all I have been through, whatever life throws at you now you are a bit more prepared and I always try to see it as a glass half-full.”

His island stay abruptly ended, McHenry resurfaced down the French coast a few months later for a Pro D2 experience where he immediately learned about local rivalries. “The passion the people had was something I’d never seen before.

“The first game I arrived we played Biarritz. That was huge for me, former Munster opponents and all that. We were driving from Dax to Biarritz, a 40-minute journey. Bayonne and Biarritz are neighbouring towns with massive rivalry, but Bayonne play in Top 14 and Biarritz in Pro D2.

“As we were driving, on the flyover in the lashing rain, there was a load of Bayonne supporters with flares and flags out, cheering the Dax team bus, ‘Allez Dax’ just so Bayonne would get one up on Biarritz. That set the tone at the start of the eight months and I loved it.

“It was a different game to what I played in England, an incredibly physical league. You were coming in battered and bruised and not walking right until Wednesday, but really good people who are so passionate about the sport. An incredible experience.”

Next up, Australia. “Dan Goggin planned to go to Sydney to play. I was having contract issues with Dax and said, ‘Throw my name in the mix if you’re not going to go down anymore’. Eastern Suburbs got onto me and I jumped at it. My brother lives here and I’ve a few cousins and friends there as well.

“Mosese Tuipulotu had left so they needed a centre and I slotted straight in. We went on to win the Shute Shield, the first time the club had won it since 1969. The scenes – whatever about winning the Champ, the passion and love the Eastern supporters had was crazy. Men of 90 years of age bawling crying on the side of the field, just so happy they had finally won it again. It was an absolute honour to be a part of.”

After the celebrations, McHenry flew to Tokyo for a ‘holiday’ that included training with an old friend Jack O’Sullivan. Now back in Sydney, he has his phone fully charged in case of an offer from wherever. “I’m keeping myself ready. I’d never let myself fade away, it’s ingrained in my brain now, this is what I do - keeping fit.

“I have an agent in France who is constantly looking. There are a few whispers back there and chat about stuff in Japan as well, but I’ve heard plenty of whispers in my career. I’m optimistic about the whole thing, a medical joker could come up tomorrow morning and I could be on a plane again.

“That’s the way I am viewing it… but the market is saturated. You have five major clubs gone bust in the last two years, including Melbourne Rebels. You back yourself but I also need to be realistic. I’m turning 27 next week and thinking what is the end goal. Am I able to take another contract for 12 months not earning a whole lot of money and just prolonging the inevitable?

“I’m an incredibly ambitious player and if the right opportunity came along I’d jump at it and I’d like to think I’d offer an awful lot to any team, but it would have to make sense in my head. I do love the sport but I’m looking at what else is out there in my life.

“I want to start setting myself up financially, want to build towards making a family, buying a house, whatever it is, but we will wait and see what happens. I’m not closing the door by any means but I’m trying to be somewhat mature in my decisions and rugby, the nature of it is so fickle that maybe it is the right time to focus on my other career.”

Despite his uncertainty, his situation would never colour his advice to younger players wanting to play professionally. “I’d always encourage them to go for it, do it, give it your best shot. The way the market has gone there are unbelievable players at the moment who are out of contract, but I would never discourage any young person. Just absolutely go for it.

“I have plenty of regrets of my time in Munster. How I carried myself, how I didn’t be a bit more stuck up and arrogant about my ways. I was probably a bit too polite about the whole thing. So my message is back your ability, back the player that you are, and prove it to the coach because if you are waiting for an opportunity to come to you, it is never going to happen.”