Growing friendship and partnerships have been put aside at the end of the Six Nations, it's time for the day job to take over until the end of May.
For Jared Payne, that means trying to plot against his new centre partner as Ulster travel to Galway for the Saturday interpro game against Robbie Henshaw's Connacht. Kiwi-born Payne has acknowledged that he will be hoping Connacht's big centre doesn't hit him too hard. Payne says (smiling):
It will be interesting to play against him, we know a bit about each other's game and it will be interesting to see how that translates when we play against each other.
It will be good and hopefully we'll have a few laughs out there. Hopefully he won't beat me up too much.
It's hard not to empathise with Payne. Henshaw has quite a list of victims so far this year, including Wesley Fofana in the Six Nations, and this beauty against Leinster earlier this season:
Henshaw's rise means he's now a marked man, and it could fall to his international centre partner whose nous guided them through Ireland's victorious campaign and allowed Henshaw to showcase his talents. It's likely that the two will face up in direct opposition with each other at outside centre in one of the more intriguing battles in a must-win game for both teams.
Ulster currently sit second in the table in a five-way battle to secure a top four finish, while Connacht are hanging onto the final Champions Cup spot in 6th with Scarlets and Edinburgh on their tails.
The game is live on Sky Sports 1 on Saturday at 2.40pm.
