Iain Henderson admits current Ulster squad is one 'I've been most excited about'

The two-time British and Irish Lions tourist is entering his 13th season with the province and had to endure Ulster’s worst-ever finish in the professional era last season as they slumped to 14th in the table with only Friday’s opponents and Zebre below them in the domestic league.

However, the 79-time capped Irish second row does see shoots of optimism for Richie Murphy’s squad.

“I'm not going to sit here and say we're going to win silverware this season, that's not currently our goal, it's not probably our strongest squad we've ever had,” stated Henderson.

“It is one of the best pre-seasons I've had with Ulster, it's been exciting, the young guys we've had, the new coaching staff members that we've had come in, the way we've been training, there's been a definite lift in that

“Obviously through my career, there's been a heap of iterations of the squad that you can go through.

“Some of those squads have done better than others, some have definitely dropped in the standard of Ulster Rugby throughout the years.

“For this one here, it's definitely the squad I've been most excited about and the squad I've seen the most potential for growth in.”

Henderson thinks the young squad is maturing.

“Are we there yet? Almost certainly not,” he added. “Is it something that I'm personally, after spending the whole summer training with them, excited about? Very excited.

“I'm starting to see a few of those young guys, let's say, who, as Tom O'Toole turned 27 a couple of days ago, they're not young anymore, but I've noticed them being around the entire pre-season.

“I'm starting to enjoy seeing them grabbing the bull by the horns or really grabbing this club and trying to make it their own.

“That's been a huge change for me, a huge shift for me this season.

"Having the coaching staff in, Willie (Faloon) coming in being proper full-time now, Mark (Sexton) coming in, Richie being able to have real faith in those guys to implement his plan, along with Jimmy (Duffy) and Sope's (Dan Soper) in the background there too, that's been great.

“The pre-season we've had, the growth we've seen in-house has been great, the next stage is games. How are we going to implement that in the games? I am incredibly excited about it and I'm excited to see where these young guys take it to.”

The captain knows Ulster must improve on last season’s 14th-placed finish.

“Whenever we look at what wasn't good about last season, how variable we were,” he said. “The inconsistencies weren't only in performance, it was a night-and-day performance, for not knowing who was in the teams, you would think there were two different teams.

“However, that's irrelevant and that feels irrelevant for what we've been doing this pre-season.

“Where the guys have got to and the way we're looking to play now, it feels like it's so much better drilled into us and feels on the pitch like we're definitely moving in the right direction.

“I'm excited about Friday to see that and I'm excited about how we can put that on and that’ll hopefully springboard some of our potential into stepping into that.”

It has been the first pre-season that Henderson hasn’t been away with Ireland or the Lions and he’s hoping having a full summer at Ravenhill will benefit him.

“It's actually been great, being able to sit here and train with the guys and see that and be a part of every single week and grow through this process with them has been great,” he added. “It's been great seeing those young guys stepping up and really owning what we want them to do.

“Probably with having a smaller cohort of guys with the national squad, we've been able to have a lot of that time together.

“We've been building into this first game and this back end of pre-season has been a real focus of ours to make sure that we're going to hit the ground running with this home game against Dragons.”