{ Mr Modest y }

HE CAN’T remember what age he was – he’s thinking nine or maybe ten – but he was on a boat on the River Shannon, he knows that much. That stuff you don’t forget. Summers spent on the water with his family. His parents, his siblings, his cousins. Days of their lives. Coming down the water from Athlone, into Lough Derg and onwards to Ballina and Killaloe – Keith Wood country.

Robbie Henshaw laughs at the memory of it all because it seems an eternity ago. He’s 28 now so we’re talking 2002 or 2003. He was a rugby player but also a Gaelic footballer and at that early stage of his life – and for many years later – there was no telling which direction he was going to go in. Oval ball or round ball, he was equally obsessed with both, even though rugby was very much in the family.

Wood was still a player, a two-time Lion, a legend. Back