Clash of the kids

While Tait was being minded by coach Andy Robinson at his first news conference on Tuesday and did peer just a mite nervously at the circus enveloping him, you were reminded that he only played his first senior match eight months ago.

To his credit, he gave mature, if fairly bland, answers to his interrogation. Team-mates were more revealing about him, though. "Nothing seems to faze him," marvelled his Newcastle team-mate and centre partner Jamie Noon, laughing about how Tait is so laid-back his form of pre-match relaxation is to sleep in the bathroom accompanied by the sound of a running shower.

In Wales, they'll have once told you, Henson probably went to sleep dreaming of his own reflection. He was supposed to be a bit too full of himself after being named as the best junior in world rugby at the same age Tait is now and probably paid for that by earning the mistrust of the last Wales coach, Steve Hansen.

Today, the silver boots, Sid Vicious hair-dos and perma-tan make you think his cockiness is still intact. Yet those in the Welsh management now reckon that over the last year he has developed as a team man and that his earlier cockiness now translates as supreme professionalism and selfconfidence.

"Gavin Henson is turning into the David Beckham of Welsh rugby," reckoned the great Phil Bennett recently before adding hastily: "The difference is that he is attracting headlines for how he performs on the field." Too right. Some of his European oneman shows for the Ospreys have been unreal.

Just ask Harlequins coach Mark Evans, whose team were burned twice in a week in the Heineken Cup by Henson to the overall tune of 50 points. "He was astonishing," recalled Evans. "He's prodigiously gifted, almost too talented to play at number 10. He can do the lot. He might be wearing 12 but then he'll suddenly nip up on the blindside as first receiver and be gone before you realise."

Henson's played outside-half, centre, full-back and wing. He's strong in defence, at 15 stone formidable in contact, and has vision and speed in attack. His kicking? Phenomenal. The other week, in practice, he booted one right out of The Gnoll and smashed the windscreen of a passing car. The Principality's own Hen-mania is growing. Even his barnet is a debating point. One rugby website announced gravely this week: "Gavin Henson's abused hair, which has suffered daily humiliation from about 23 ridiculous haircuts over the years, is appealing for intervention from the IRB and the United Nations."

Fashion, though, sounds like a bit of crutch for him while he's been living off anti-inflammatories because of a niggling groin injury. "If I look good, I feel good," he said recently, doubtless distressing a generation of old Neath bruisers.

Henson doesn't care, though. "If it were the All Blacks in their New Zealand backyard, Henson would still believe the Ospreys could beat them and there's nothing wrong with that at all," said Bennett. "Welsh rugby has lacked confidence for far too long."

In that observation lies the potential pitfall for Henson. He is in danger of being hoisted as a symbol of the Welsh rugby renaissance for which we have waited and waited. From Henson, a nation expects, yet so far, he's just wanted to be seen as an entertainer, not a saviour.

Though he is only four years older and wiser than the Englishman, Henson is also four years more damaged. In contrast, Tait's colleagues reckon he is still in that blessed state of being too green to worry about anything. He can just switch on the shower, sleep and dream.