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Mark Orders

Unheralded new prop who's the 'oldest-looking young bloke you'll see' becomes talk of Welsh rugby

Never mind Kirsty MacColl telling us about the guy working down the chip shop who swears he’s Elvis, the Ospreys have a 24-year-old 5ft 8in, 17st 13lb tighthead prop who seems very much cut from the same cloth.

Cut to the away dressing room at Welford Road and Rhys Henry giving a rendition of Jailhouse Rock.

The song was released in 1957, 41 years before Henry came into this world and many musical genres have passed by since, but it mattered not a jot to the squat former Wales U20s prop, who positively belted his way through a verse or two of one of the King’s finest, with the entire Ospreys dressing room - players and staff - joining in amid rousing celebratory scenes after the Heineken Champions Cup win over Leicester.

It wasn’t Elvis live from Hawaii.

It was the Ospreys’ version live from Leicester.

And he went down a storm.

A lively character then? “You could say that,” laughed team-mate Morgan Morris.

“Certainly everyone gets on with him around the changing rooms and stuff.”

Here’s another thing about Henry that he must have been told countless times. He looks older than his years. Much older. Much, much older.

Oh, and he can scrummage.

Ask the Leicester props.

In those final minutes in the east Midlands last Friday, Henry was part of an Ospreys scrum that kept forcing penalties out of the opposition, even before they were reduced in numbers after their replacement looshead was yellow carded.

Leicester must have been a shade bemused.

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Had their players mugged up on Henry, they would have read that he was only 24, but a stranger who knew nothing about him might hazard a guess that the Ospreys had found some kind of middle-aged marvel in last week’s big European game.

“Rhys Henry off the bench like a malevolent wheelie bin of destruction,” someone posted on Twitter.

“Unbelievable — the oldest-looking young bloke you are ever likely to meet,” summed up Ospreys prop Toby Booth of Henry

“He’s a real character in the dressing room, a real character on and off the pitch.

“He’s part of the new Ospreys, really, that little group of players like Morgan Morris, Will Griffiths, Dewi Lake, Joe Hawkins, Jac Morgan, Rhys Davies. That’s the core of the Ospreys going forward, the new Ospreys.

“Being a prop sometimes your progression into first-team rugby is a bit slower because of the physical suitability and the experience required.

“Duncan Jones has done an unbelievably good job with him.

“Like all props you’re not always going to get your own way.

“But he came out to South Africa with his and it was good for him from a learning point of view.

“Playing for Swansea against older men is also all part of the apprenticeship.

“And he came to an extreme pressurised situation where he delivered in the last 10 minutes or so of that game.

“He should take confidence from that and carry on into his progression to become the prop that he can be.

“I’m really delighted for him.

“He brings a lot off the pitch as well, which is great. He’s a great guy and we enjoy having him around and he’s getting better and better, which is great.”

Nor is Henry just a quality scrummager in the making.

He has handling skills, while he’s also versatile enough to play on both sides of the set-piece.

“He’s a tighthead, but he can also play to a high level at loosehead,” said Booth. “We used him there when he came on against Glasgow a year or two ago and he basically played the house down. He was thrown in at the deep end then.

“Having people who can play both sides to a high level — Paul James is another great example — really helps you out.”

His effort last week didn’t shock some at the Ospreys. “He’s always doing well in training and whenever he’s been involved in a game he’s put his hand up,” said Morris, himself superb as a replacement against Leicester.

“He got their loosehead sent to the sin-bin last week, then their starting loosehead came on and he got penalties against him. I thought he was outstanding. Scrummaging against Nicky Smith every week probably helps him.”

We will never know if the King would have been impressed with the events in the sheds at Leicester.

Henry will not care, nor should he.

As someone perceptively noted: "I bet Elvis couldn't scrummage like him."

Fair play.

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