Dan McFarland backs Sam Carter and Alan O’Connor to rise to occasion in Heineken Champions Cup

The lock was taken off injured just before half- time in Ireland’s victory over Scotland at the weekend and McFarland admitted Henderson could be facing another lengthy spell on the sidelines.

“We’ll hang onto that info until we have a specific timeframe but it’s not going to be a quick turnaround, I can tell you that,” said the coach.

“It’s a big loss for us, Iain is a talismanic figure for us, he’s our club captain.

“He’s a big game player for us and he’s played really big games for us in the recent past and throughout his career.

“Having said that, Al (O’Connor) and Sam Carter have been doing a tremendous job in the engine room and they’ll continue with that,” he added.

“Iain is a loss because it is Iain, are we disappointed because we have the other two playing? Absolutely not.

“To lose your captain and you lose your ten (Billy Burns) as well, that’s a difficult one but again we’ve played a number of games over the past while and played pretty well, albeit not at the same level we’re about to face.”

“The guys that have played while Billy has been with Ireland have done a great job and we’ll be happy to trust in them.”

McFarland said he had no doubt the players will continue to rise to the occasion regardless of the challenges ahead.

“We were always confident that Sam would play well, Sam actually played well from the moment that he was here,” he said.

“He is a nuts and bolts player, he understands the set piece very well, whether that is scrum, lineout, maul and maul defence.

“He has done a really good job around that for us, fitted in with everyone, as has Alan O’Connor who has been playing out of his skin - Al has spent the last two years gradually improving,” McFarland added.

“He was already in a really good place, he is an extremely skilful player and probably epitomises that fighting, competitive attitude that we look for from the guys in the squad, he is a real driver of the people around him in that kind of bite that you need in professional rugby.”

Toulouse ended Ulster’s European hopes at the quarter-final stage in September and while McFarland’s side have won all eight Pro14 games since that defeat in France, McFarland feels it is hard to access the improvement in his side.

“That’s difficult to analyse because it’s obviously relative to the competition and the opposition you’re playing against,” he said.

“That’s not to denigrate the people we’ve played since then, but the bottom line is that most of those games have been in the international window so it’s a different thing.

“But I know we’re playing a lot better, we’re playing a lot freer now than we were back then, guys prior to the quarter-final or start of the new block who weren’t in such good form are playing well now; we have a little bit more cohesion with some of the young fellas in the backs who didn’t get much time together prior to that.

“There are plenty of things there that have improved, whether Toulouse have improved or not, I don’t know, I’m not sure.

“They will say they have because they hadn’t played many games [in September] but I know we’ve improved.”