Robbie Henshaw has been watching Michael Jordan. One of the most talked-about revelations from the final episodes of the Netflix documentary The Last Dance centred around Jordan’s ‘flu game’ and how he stared down debilitating illness.
It was game five of the 1997 National Basketball Association finals, during which Jordan, visibly in pain and exhausted, played one of the matches of his career, magically scoring 38 points for the Bulls in their win over Utah Jazz.
Two weeks ago prior to Toulouse, Henshaw found himself in a similar place. Yet for 64 minutes in Aviva Stadium the Leinster centre set about colouring the game with his traditional high work rate and gain line breaking carries. As sick bed cameos go, it was an eye-catching shift.
“I re-watched The Last Dance again recently and it was an episode where Michael Jordan was violently ill for one of the play-off games. I had that kind of thought that it got him through,” he says. “In parts he was out on his feet and then towards the end he just found a way. That’s what I was kind of thinking. It was a rough week. I was in bed on Wednesday and Thursday. I was pretty grim, just with a flu, but I got out of bed for the Captain’s Run on Friday and I felt somewhat better, then felt better on Saturday.”
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Mind set is a phrase commonly used and maybe not entirely understood. The assumption that every player has it is erroneous, or, rather the expectation that every player has equal amounts or levels of it is inaccurate.
For Henshaw, his mind set for the Toulouse hour will have to be fixed just as hard for La Rochelle and for a completely different set of circumstances. Against Racing in their semi-final La Rochelle started with centres Jeremey Sinzelle and Jonathan Danty. Levani Botia replaced Sinzelle on 64 minutes.
But in the guessing game of team picks, Botia may start. If Henshaw is going to gain yards with his carries, La Rochelle coach Ronan O’Gara may as well ask him to do it through a solid wall of bone and tissue.
Nicknamed ‘The Demolition man’ the former Fijian international alongside French international Danty might be the bespoke tailoring required for a Henshaw and Garry Ringrose centre pairing. Undaunted, Henshaw has been here before.
“Yeah that’s exactly it,” he explains. “I obviously respect every centre we play. We’ll do that, we analyse them, we know the threats that they have and we’ll have to nullify them early.
“But again if we worry about ourselves and make sure we get our roles right, that will go a long way for us on the day. So yeah, it will be a tough test and it will be physical. But again the physicality is something that we walk towards and we welcome.”
His experience of O’Gara was as a player on the rise just as the Irish outhalf was stepping off the international stage. They shared one Irish session together when Henshaw was brought into a Six Nations training camp. The playing encounters were also brief.
“It was about 10 years now, I’m showing my age,” he says. “He would give time to the younger lads, chat away with you, ask stuff. He was sound. I played against him a few times.”
Not enough to be informed on O’Gara the coach or personality. But just as Stuart Lancaster said earlier in the week, Leinster’s priority is to arrive in Marseille homework complete and with focus on a humble belief in their own potential.
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Leinster thinking is the team learned more about being beaten by La Rochelle in last year’s semi-final or by Saracens the year before in the quarter-final than the four times they have won. If Leinster turn up and turn on, Botia’s threat in the centre will look after itself.
“It will be different to playing here in Dublin,” admits Henshaw. “I think we’ll head down on Thursday afternoon. We’ll get a good scope of what we’re dealing with early. Probably will be warm. But I think from what I’m hearing, the sun won’t be in the stadium come 5.30pm on the weekend, which will be good. But there are a lot of other factors.
“We know La Rochelle have a massive travelling support and it will be almost… we could even expect there to be more supporters for them than for us, because the logistics of getting there are difficult I’ve heard. Fingers crossed that won’t be the case. But I know from playing in France before. We’ll be ready for it.”
Henshaw has no sick bed to rise from this week with all of the power of a physical, athletic game at his disposal. Jordan’s ability to get it done made him the greatest basketball player. Get it done. There are worse simple thoughts to take into a European Cup final.
