Rugby: Southland to South America

Paul Henderson's only game as All Blacks captain, against Japan in 1995, ended in a record World Cup win. Photo / Getty Images

Dinner with Andes plane crash survivors is among the highlights of Paul Henderson’s coaching career.

Former All Black Paul Henderson was the archetypal Southern Man during his playing days and, two decades on, he remains committed to Southland, even if his career
has taken him to some far-flung places and connected him to one of rugby's worst tragedies.

Henderson lives in Invercargill and spends plenty of time with his family at a holiday home in Arrowtown. He coaches the local Winton rugby team but his coaching and business interests lie further afield.

Henderson has made a living through property investment in Auckland. But when the global financial crisis hit in 2008, he turned his hand to coaching, which he'd done before in various guises in South Africa and Ireland. This time, it was Chile, where he took charge of the Old Grangonians club in Santiago.

Henderson's club was the sister club of Uruguay's Old Christians, the team whose plane crashed in the Andes in 1972 en-route to Santiago to play Old Grangonians. It was a harrowing ordeal for the surviving Uruguayan players, who were forced to eat human flesh to stay alive.

Henderson had read the book and seen the movie, and was amazed to find himself associating with some of the people concerned.

"Some of my mates were waiting for the plane to arrive," he says. "Every year, the Santiago guys would go to Uruguay or the Uruguayans would come to Santiago.
"I met the survivors and went out to dinner with [them]. It was a very humbling experience to sit down with those guys."

When the financial crisis eased, Henderson returned to Invercargill and his property interests. He first got involved in the Auckland market soon after his retirement.

"Some of my old mates like Zinzan Brooke said, 'Look, I know you come from Invercargill, Ginge, but what about Auckland?'"

It was a speculative decision at the time but the current boom makes the move look inspired.

Henderson played seven tests and 18 games for the All Blacks between 1989 and 1995. It's an experience he looks back on with equal measures of pride and humility.

"Each and every game you play for the All Blacks is just a unique and wonderful experience," he says.

One that stands out is the pool game against Japan at the 1995 World Cup in South Africa, when Henderson captained the side for the only time and led the team to a record 145-17 win.

"It's a really big thing - a huge responsibility," he says of the All Black captaincy.

"Japan had played really well [in the tournament], so I was a little bit concerned there could be a game on. But I think it was 88-10 at halftime, so I breathed a sigh of relief."

Things could have been different had Henderson not been hospitalised for three weeks after a cut he sustained in an All Blacks trial in the early 1990s became infected. While he was there, Graham Lowe, then the Manly Sea Eagles coach, tried numerous times to contact him about a possible switch to rugby league.

By the time Henderson was out of hospital, the moment had gone. But it's still something the former openside ponders, albeit flippantly.

"On a league field, they come to you instead of [you] trying to run them down all day," he says. "In rugby, I used to run 50m to try to tackle somebody."