In the euphoric dressing-room following the win over Italy, Rob Henderson presumptuously made some reference to meeting up again this week for the French match. Jokingly reminded by one of the management that the squad hadn't been picked yet, Henderson retorted: "See you in another 12 months then."

Henderson was entitled to be a bit cheeky. Unluckily left out of the World Cup squad, he'd even been omitted from the 45-man Irish Test/A squad before the Six Nations. He watched the England game in Molly Malone's pub in Richmond, and had planned to be in Hartlepool for the Scottish game, visiting his prospective inlaws and sorting out arrangements for his August wedding.

Two high-impact replacement roles later, he'll be on the pitch for the kick-off in Stade de France tomorrow. He's come the full circle again.

The World Cup omission is something he'd rather not discuss, which is a shame, but which confirms that it was the biggest disappointment of his career. Perhaps it is something that even prompted notions of retirement. In any case, it's something he'd rather not stir up.

As regards his omission from the 45-man squad, given he wasn't even in the Wasps team at the time he couldn't have any complaints. This was due to a combination of others' good form - namely Mark Denney and Fraser Waters - and injury to Henderson, but even so you'd wonder what Wasps coach Nigel Melville was thinking of.

Thereafter Henderson's good fortune was partially due to the misfortune of others. Jonathan Bell's hand injury meant a call-up to the A bench for the win over England in Franklin's Gardens, albeit for a spectator's role.

Henderson was then picked in the A team for the Scottish weekend, but on Valentine's Day, while out for a meal with his fiancee Angie, he received a phone call from the IRFU to say he'd been promoted to the Test squad on account of an injury to Kevin Maggs. "It actually made the day better than the strawberry souffle, which was quite nice anyway," he says.

Girvan Dempsey's nose injury then brought about his 32nd-minute arrival in the Italian game and another trademark impact substitution. "It still amazes me to this day how things have turned around so quickly. And now, finally, from somewhere, I've managed to get back into the starting line-up."

Putting it all into perspective, Henderson equates it to "Elvis winning the Gold Cup".

It's clearly the reward for a couple of big replacement cameos by Henderson, but against that the Wasps centre does seem to get the short end of the stick. As of today, three of his last four championship starts will have been against France (twice) and England, which prompted a sympathetic and wry grin from Warren Gatland.

"It's quite hard on Rob. He's come off the bench in the last couple of games and done particularly well and now we're throwing him in against the French and saying `go out there and have a good performance'. So it's a big task for him, but if he can do what he's done in the last couple of games we'll be more than happy."

In many ways, Henderson is the same as he ever was - good fun, excellent squad member, eminently popular. Yet, at 27, he has definitely changed, too. For example, he doesn't get wound up as much before matches as he used to, and he's a good deal more serious about his job.

While reappraising the old Henderson virtues, Gatland has detected a change as well. "He's experienced now. He talks very well in the midfield, he talks very well in training, and the players inside and outside him have been comfortable when he's come on because of the amount of talking he's done. So I don't want to put too much pressure on him, but he seems very comfortable and very relaxed at the moment."

Henderson agrees that he is a little bit older and cuter nowadays and, accordingly, a little more vocal. Defensively, Henderson talks about bringing the line up together and making those first-up tackles, yet he once had a tendency to "shoot" (push up too quickly and too far ahead of his team-mates). That seems to have been rectified now.

"Yes I have, I've slowed down," he said. "Maybe I'm a little bit older and a little wiser. The tendency before was just to try and absolutely clatter someone, and do a bit of damage that way. Now I think you can hold your line and go up and still make turnover tackles, big tackles, but you're not exposing anybody around you. I think that also comes from communication. In the past I might have been a little bit timid, a little bit quiet. It's something I'm not worried about at all now."

If anything, Henderson seems more explosive and fitter now than he ever was, perhaps in part the result of that huge effort to make the World Cup squad. "Funnily enough I feel stronger, I feel fitter, and I feel quicker. I mean, whether that is seen to be the case is another matter. I've lost a bit of body fat and I actually enjoy training nowadays."

So he wasn't as professional as he might have been in the past? "I think that's the key word, professional. I think nowadays it's come to the point that if I want to play at a certain level I don't want to have any qualms about what's happened in my career, I need to do it."

This means afternoon trips to the gym, whereas in the past . . . ? "The two or three times I'm down in the gym I'd probably have been down in the pub, which is a fair reflection of how things were.

"Nowadays I'd probably drink once a week after a match and that'd be it. The diet is a lot better as well."

The better Henderson does as an impact sub, the more he might get pigeonholed as purely that. Yet he says: "After the last year I'd take impact.

"Just to be involved in the squad again was a massive boost for me. And it's just tremendous to be back in from the start.

"In certain situations," he admits, "it's easier coming off the bench because a lot of the hard work has been done by the 15 who originally took the field and if you can come on and make some sort of impact people tend to remember the last 30 more than the first 30.

"But if I can do it for 30 minutes or 50 minutes then there's no reason why I can't do it for 80 minutes."

He's also been categorised as purely a crash-bang-wallop merchant, which is something that's always been too simplistic. He shrugs: he doesn't mind taking the ball up, but there's more to his game than that.

He'd like to be more than a horses-for-courses selection, he'd love a run in the team, and he harbours dreams of playing for the Lions. Now 27, the next World Cup may not be a dream too far, and the fire rages within even stronger now after he was omitted from the last one.

Tomorrow is a huge game for everyone, all championship matches are. But you sense it's that bit bigger for Henderson.