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Ulster name who will take over as captain following Rory Best's retirement
By Online Editors
Ulster have confirmed that Iain Henderson has been appointed club captain for the 2019/20 season. The 27-year-old, who is currently in Ireland’s training squad ahead of the World Cup, has represented his home province on 105 occasions.
Henderson, who takes over as provincial skipper from soon-to-retire Ireland and Ulster hooker Rory Best, started his rugby journey at Academy RFC. before continuing his development at Belfast Royal Academy.
His talent was further nurtured in the Ulster academy and he played club rugby for Queen’s University and Ballynahinch. The versatile forward represented Ulster and Ireland at various age-grade levels on route to making his senior provincial debut in April 2012 against Connacht.
Henderson has since become a key figure for Ulster and Ireland, winning 44 caps for the latter. He played in four of Ireland’s games during the Six Nations Grand Slam success of 2018, while he also featured in 2014 and 2015 Championship wins.
His excellent form at club and international level was rewarded with a call up to the British and Irish Lions tour of New Zealand in 2017.
Henderson, who has led his province on a number of occasions in the past, commented: “I’m incredibly proud and excited to be appointed as club captain. I had a good chat with Dan (McFarland) and we are closely aligned in terms of how we see Ulster moving forward.
“I’ve got massive boots to fill with Rory outgoing, but it’s a challenge I’m really looking forward to. When I’ve captained Ulster on previous occasions, it’s been made a lot easier because of the presence of a number of great leaders around me.
"It really helps when you’ve got people like Al (O’Connor), Rob (Herring) and Marcell (Coetzee) behind you who understand what you’re doing and provide unbelievable support.
“Our squad has a very low age profile and one of the most exciting things for me is seeing the hunger within the group and the players’ desire to improve. We also have the likes of Jack (McGrath), Sam (Carter) and Matt (Faddes) coming in, who will add significant additional experience, so we have got a lot to be excited about going into the new season.”
Commenting on his decision, Ulster boss McFarland, said: “Iain has a deep love for his province. He understands exactly what it means to wear the Ulster jersey and this rubs off on those around him.
“As a leader, he has demonstrated his ability to command respect through his professionalism and talismanic play. Asking Iain to be captain was not a difficult decision and because he is surrounded by a squad of good men, I know that he will flourish.”
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Latest Comments
The only benefit of the draft idea is league competitiveness. There would be absolutely no commercial value in a draft with rugby’s current interest levels.
I wonder what came first in america? I’m assuming it’s commercial aspect just built overtime and was a side effect essentially.
But the idea is not without merit as a goal. The first step towards being able to implement a draft being be creating it’s source of draftees. Where would you have the players come from? NFL uses college, and players of an age around 22 are generally able to step straight into the NFL. Baseball uses School and kids (obviously nowhere near pro level being 3/4 years younger) are sent to minor league clubs for a few years, the equivalent of the Super Rugby academies. I don’t think the latter is possible legally, and probably the most unethical and pointless, so do we create a University scene that builds on and up from the School scene? There is a lot of merit in that and it would tie in much better with our future partners in Japan and America.
Can we used the club scene and dispose of the Super Rugby academies? The benefit of this is that players have no association to their Super side, ie theyre not being drafted elshwere after spending time as a Blues or Chiefs player etc, it removes the negative of investing in a player just to benefit another club. The disadvantage of course is that now the players have nowhere near the quality of coaching and each countries U20s results will suffer (supposedly).
Or are we just doing something really dirty and making a rule that the only players under the age of 22 (that can sign a pro contract..) that a Super side can contract are those that come from the draft? Any player wanting to upgrade from an academy to full contract has to opt into the draft?
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You’ve got the perfect structure to run your 1A and 1B on a quota of club representation by Province. Have some balance/reward system in place to promote and reward competitiveness/excellence. Say each bracket has 12 teams, each province 3 spots, given the Irish Shield winner once of the bottom ranked provinces spots, so the twelve teams that make up 1A are 4 from Leinster, 3 each from Connacht and Munster, and 2 from Ulster etc. Run the same rule over 1B from the 1A reults/winner/bottom team etc. I’d imagine IRFU would want to keep participation to at least two teams from any one province but if not, and there was reason for more flexibility and competitveness, you can simply have other ways to change the numbers, like caps won by each province for the year prior or something.
Then give those clubs sides much bigger incentive to up their game, say instead of using the Pro sides for the British and Irish Cup you had going, it’s these best club sides that get to represent Ireland. There is plenty of interest in semi pro club cup competitions in europe that Ireland can invest in or drive their own creation of.
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