Gavin Henson returns to rugby today after a 21-month absence. He does so, fittingly, not at the rundown Vicarage Road but at Wembley where a crowd of 60,000 is expected to see his new club, Saracens, take on Wasps in the Premiership. Henson likes to be seen.

There is more than a trace of the central character in Albert Camus's The Outsider, Meursault, about Henson, the Wales and Lions centre: he is not a conformist and he has not a trace of hypocrisy. Meursault refused to lie to save his life and Henson, not least in his autobiography five years ago, has frequently got in trouble for being honest, never dissembling or dodging questions.

He is a media officer's worst nightmare and Wales only allowed him to give interviews sparingly. When Henson says he is not fearful about making his return today and that he expects to get back into the Wales squad for next year's Six Nations, he is not speaking for effect. It is simply who he is.

"Gavin is different and we should celebrate that," says the former Wales hooker Garin Jenkins, who was at Swansea when Henson joined the club at the age of 18 and who had packed down against Henson's father, who spent his playing career as a prop with Maesteg. "When he arrived we had never seen anyone like him: he had colour co-ordinated kit, gel in his hair and fake tan slapped on all over. He stood out and went on to show that you should never judge anyone by their appearance. He could play and he was driven by ambition."

Swansea went on a tour to Nottingham before Henson's first season. "They put us in a room together," Jenkins says, "probably because I was one of the more experienced players. I remember him telling me to go to the foyer and get him a can of Coke. Who did he think he was, not even saying please? I went, of course, and I found him to be a great lad. Looks are deceptive and Gavin is widely misunderstood.

"Like us all, he has faults but what you have never been able to knock is his confidence. It is something young players can take from him, his belief in his own ability, as he has shown in his recent television programmes. When he says that he needs only a few games to get back to where he was, he believes it. He is someone who can step up. He is not frightened to stand alone. He loves the big stage. I played with a number of talented players in international rugby who could not handle it."

Henson joined Saracens two months ago after finally persuading the Ospreys, who had allowed him to take a sabbatical from the game after a series of injuries left him disillusioned, to release him from his contract. He has been at Wembley in the past week, helping publicise the Wasps game, fresh from his exploits on Strictly Come Dancing. "I have missed rugby so much," he says. "I was not feeling positive about it when I took a break. I was not in a great place mentally but I am now. I have not fulfilled my potential and I can play better than I have done so far. I have shown glimpses of what I am capable of probably but never on a consistent basis and the goal for me is to try and win honours and trophies and be regarded as one of the best players. I am excited by the prospect of playing against Wasps, not fearful of it."

Henson is so shy that when he was at Swansea the club's then coach, John Connolly, arranged for him to work on the reception desk at a city hotel to improve his communication skills and draw him out. The paradox is that he has courted publicity in his private life and his relationship with Charlotte Church, which ended this year after they had had two children, made him a magnet for the tabloids and the celebrity-obsessed magazines. He revels in attention, if not what it entails.

He was first capped as a 19-year-old in 2001, at outside-half, but he made his name four years later, kicking a long-range penalty to defeat England in Cardiff, in the first leg of what was to be a grand slam.

Wales's first match in the Six Nations in February is against England at the Millennium Stadium. Henson has a month to prove his worth.

"I would love to be involved, but I know I have a lot to do before that," he says. "It was one of my best games five years ago and that annoys me because of the time that has elapsed since then. Wales are playing well enough but have not quite finished it off and won the games, especially against the big teams. I would like to think I am the missing cog but I have got a lot to prove yet. I have never played in a World Cup and it is a massive goal of mine."

Henson is contracted to Saracens until the end of the season and they want him to stay on. "I have to see how things work out," he says. "My kids are my priority and they live in Cardiff. As long as I see them enough then I hope I will play well enough for Saracens to want me. I am not ruling out going back to Wales and the Ospreys: that will always be home but I hope I will fall in love with Saracens and that I will be good for the game."

Jenkins welcomes his return. "Gavin is one of the few players people want to watch because he does things," he says. "Rugby is becoming uniform and it is lovely to have players like him who are different. Coaches have to harness what he has. Maybe there are things he needs to address himself within team set-ups, but what matters is what he does, not what he doesn't do. The game needs more individuals. My worry is that there is not enough diversity. You have to respect authority and your team-mates but what has to be guarded against is sourness because of his media profile. Jealousy is a terrible thing and it can grow in the nicest of players and coaches. It has to be nipped in the bud otherwise the bland will lead the bland. We need more Gavin Hensons."

Camus's Meursault was an outsider because he followed and acted on his own sentiments, saying exactly what he felt, and was not bound by society's conventions or prevailing mores. "I haven't trained with Saracens too much, to be honest," Henson said as he concluded his final round of interviews last week.

The outsider-half, perhaps.