{"id":391508,"date":"2026-01-04T17:57:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T17:57:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/391508\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T17:57:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T17:57:14","slug":"ulster-captain-iain-henderson-makes-public-plea-to-irish-coaching-staff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/391508\/","title":{"rendered":"Ulster captain Iain Henderson makes public plea to &#8216;Irish coaching staff&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>mens<\/p>\n<p>united-rugby-championship<\/p>\n<p>    Iain Henderson of Ulster and assistant coach Mark Sexton during the warm-up before the United Rugby Championship match between Ulster and Benetton at Affidea Stadium in Belfast. (Photo By Ramsey Cardy\/Sportsfile via Getty Images) <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"expand\" src=\"https:\/\/eu-cdn.rugbypass.com\/images\/common-svg\/select-arrow.svg\" height=\"6\" width=\"11\"\/>      https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/news\/ulster-captain-iain-henderson-makes-public-plea-to-irish-coaching-staff\/    <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/ulster\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ulster<\/a> Rugby are up to third having leapfrogged over <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/munster\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Munster<\/a> Rugby by beating them 28-3 in front of a bumper Belfast crowd on Friday night, with try-scoring No 8 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/players\/bryn-ward\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bryn Ward<\/a> named Player of the Match.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s now six wins out of eight for them in the league, while they have a game in hand on all the teams towards the top of the table apart from the Stormers.<\/p>\n<p>Skipper <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/players\/iain-henderson\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Iain Henderson<\/a> said: \u201cAs I\u2019ve been spouting for the last six months, we\u2019ve seen the progress behind closed doors and it\u2019s great to see it coming out in matches like this.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe young lads coming through are showing such promise and the quality of our training sessions has just been getting better and better and the way the coaches have been coaching us. We are seeing that all transferring onto the pitch now. It\u2019s exciting to see it finally coming out.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen times are tough, it is so difficult to drag yourself back and get the feeling good, so we are just thriving in this environment. There is a good buzz about the place. It\u2019s a good craic, which is positive.<\/p>\n<p>Fixture<\/p>\n<p>United Rugby Championship<\/p>\n<p>    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/313.png.webp.webp\"\/> <\/p>\n<p> Ulster <\/p>\n<p>    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/310.png.webp.webp\"\/> <\/p>\n<p> Munster <\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/live\/munster-vs-ulster\/?g=947194\/\" class=\"link-box\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">   <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI really hope the Irish coaching staff have a look at these young lads and see how they fit into an exciting <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/ireland\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ireland<\/a> squad going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Reflecting on the full house at a snowy, bitterly cold Affidea Stadium, second row Henderson said: \u201cWe love the fact that we had a sell out and we really fed off that.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs bad a night as it was with the weather, you could see the guys wanting to still try and play, wanting to put on that spectacle to bring exciting rugby and an exciting night.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe know we\u2019ve been guilty in the past of waiting for the fans to pick us up, so we said we were really going to try our best to lift the roof and give what we want to give to them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"mens united-rugby-championship Iain Henderson of Ulster and assistant coach Mark Sexton during the warm-up before the United Rugby&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":391509,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-391508","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}