Peter Jackson’s column: Such a pity Gavin Henson never graced a World Cup
Why the most gifted Welsh back of his generation has never set foot in the finals of any World Cup ought to go down as one of the more enduring mysteries of 21st century rugby.
How he came to miss four in a row takes some explaining.
The crying shame that someone of Henson’s ability never made it to the biggest tournament in the game began in 2003, so long ago that Steve Hansen was coaching Wales after his compatriot, Graham Henry, had given it up as a bad job.
While Hansen never got the credit he deserved for salvaging Welsh rugby from the depths, he made mistakes and one of them was to leave Henson out of his squad for the tournament in Australia 12 years ago. There was no question that he should have gone.
Back then, at 23, he offered match-winning potential at fly-half and inside centre at a time when Wales were hardly in a position to declare him surplus to requirements. Always one to tell it as it was, Henson gave Hansen the proverbial both barrels. His time, as everyone thought, was bound to come.
The following season, with Mike Ruddock having succeeded Hansen, Henson played a major role in the best of the three Welsh Grand Slams. The long-distance penalty that beat England made him famous, his leadership of the Welsh defensive operation in conceding only two tries all season made him more famous.
When the next World Cup came around, in 2007, Wales again took off without Henson. Gareth Jenkins, then in charge only to be sacked on the spot the day after Wales lost to Fiji, prolonged Henson’s agony on the grounds that he had not recovered sufficiently from an Achilles injury.
Two years later he took a sabbatical from the Ospreys to concentrate on his avowed pursuit of celebrity as a budding reality television star. Despite that and changing clubs with bewildering frequency, the Prodigal Son played himself back into such serious contention for World Cup 2011 that he only had to stay in one piece to make the trip.
Instead, he dislocated a wrist half an hour into the penultimate pre-tournament match, against England in Cardiff.
Scott Williams, his replacement that afternoon, went instead.
Now a fourth World Cup would appear to have gone the way of the previous three, not that Henson would have been holding his breath. “I don’t think they’ll be looking at players in the Championship,” he said after making the short transfer from Bath to Bristol in mid-season.
Nobody from the Welsh management, he said, had been in touch with him since he made what now seems certain to have been his last stand in the red jersey, four years ago.
Post-professionalism, he surely stands as the best player never to have played in the finals of a World Cup, the rugby equivalent of George Best or Ryan Giggs. Until a few days ago, there had always been the possibility, however remote, that Henson would at long last be given the global stage worthy of his lavish talent.
In World Cup terms, the promise that it would happen one day never came to pass and now that fate has played another dirty trick on him at the age of 33 it surely never will. Barring a miraculously quick recovery and a Welsh man-power crisis in midfield, the last of those tomorrows ended at Ashton Gate on Wednesday night.
Like us all, he made mistakes but Gavin Henson was refreshingly different – a player who knew he was good, honest enough to ignore the bland answers drawn up by the spin doctors and tell it as he saw it and to hell with the consequences.
