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“A star is born.”
That’s how SomersetLive summed up the performance of Louie Hennessey in Bath’s Champions Cup semi-final defeat to Bordeaux Begles on Sunday. The Gallagher Prem champions fell short of a European final, beaten by the reigning Champions Cup holders.
Johann van Graan’s side will have their gripes about how they exited the competition at this stage, with the officials certainly part of that.
That will likely hurt for some time.
Once that subsides, Bath will start to pick out the positives from the performance at Stade Atlantique Bordeaux Metropole.
Watching from afar, Steve Tandy won’t have the same emotional journey to go on.
Instead, he’ll just be pleased with how the 22-year-old centre went in the biggest match of his career to date.
The semi-final in France was Hennessey’s first start in European rugby.
Before then, the former Llanishen High School pupil had mustered just 19 minutes of action across two pool stage matches.
Six minutes against Benetton last season, then 13 minutes away to Toulon earlier in this campaign.
The latter was still enough to score a lovely try at the Stade Mayol, scything through the French side’s defence after hitting Max Ojomoh’s short ball at pace.
There was a similar line in the first half, only from a pass from Ollie Lawrence, which saw Hennessey burst through Maxime Lucu’s tackle and threaten to round French flyer Louis Bielle-Biarrey.
Then, in the second half, he stepped through a tackle and reached over to score.
For a man who has played just 723 minutes in the Gallagher Prem – although he has crossed for six tries in 13 outings – it was a performance that belied his relative lack of experience.
Watching on, Tandy wouldn’t have been surprised.
The Wales coach has had Hennessey in his first two Wales squads, with the Bath midfielder finally making his debut against Ireland in this year’s Six Nations.
That was only a brief 11-minute cameo. But it’s clear what Hennessey can bring to Wales’ game.
“He’s a big athletic young man,” said Tandy earlier this year. “Nothing fazes him.
“What impressed me, and I know I always go back to some club games, but I’ve spoken to Johann van Graan about him a lot. I remember he had a start up in Leicester and it didn’t faze him and I thought he was outstanding, his work rate.
“A lot of young guys in the game now are quiet, but Louie has got animation. He’s got a confidence the way he speaks around D set.
“He’s got that about him and he drives himself to be perfect. You can see the frustration from Louie when he trains.
“He wants to be the best all the time and he’s got an amazing attitude. He was unfortunate. He had a bump on his hand coming into the campaign so that held him back a little bit.
“But the way he’s gone about his rehab to get back into this position… he was brilliant for us in the autumn without getting an opportunity. But it’s something he’s thoroughly deserved and I think he’s going to have a huge future for us going forward.”
Wales ended the Six Nations with a relatively settled midfield pairing of Joe Hawkins and Eddie James.
There is, let’s not forget, also Max Llewellyn to come back in after injury.
However, when you see a talent like Hennessey impress on the biggest stage – as he did at the first time of asking on Sunday – it surely can’t be long until he is knocking at the door for a Test start.
With matches against Fiji, Argentina and South Africa to come this summer, July could be just the perfect opportunity.
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