Sweetnam aiming to end big season on a high with Munster
OVER 50,000 people will be in Aviva Stadium tomorrow, the latest noisy interlude in the sporting fortunes of Darren Sweetnam.
For a 23-year-old with no senior Test caps and 33 provincial appearances in his career so far, his rugby life has featured more than its share of momentous events.
There was his first European try in a packed and vibrant Thomond Park in the rout of Toulouse at the start of this month.
He scored, too, in a mighty win against the Maori All Blacks at the Limerick ground last November.
‘It was incredible,’ he would later remember. ‘I remember standing in front of the haka and saw all the phone lights shining down on us. I played in front of 65,000 at Croke Park in an All-Ireland semi-final but it was nothing like that.
‘It felt like there were hundreds of thousands of people there. I suppose it was the full house, just the roar coming down. Munster fans are so loud, and they called that match a friendly.’
And then there is the matter of Sweetnam’s European debut. It came against Glasgow at Thomond Park last October. It was the day after the funeral of Anthony Foley, and the match and rousing win are now credited with providing the ignition for the journey that has followed.
The Corkman gave his reaction to a truly extraordinary day on social media after that debut. ‘I grew up dreaming of playing European Cup rugby with Munster in a packed Thomond Park. That was the greatest experience of my life, the fans were absolutely incredible. A debut I will never forget. #yougavememyfirstchance #thanksax #RIP.’
His own career achievement was submerged under the emotion of that Glasgow match, but Sweetnam had reason to give thanks to Foley. In 2012, aged 19, he forsook a sporting career as a senior hurler with Cork for a Munster development contract, and it was under Anthony Foley that he first emerged to make his debut in February 2015.
No player has thrived like Sweetnam under Rassie Erasmus, though. He is the encapsulation of the enthusiasm the head coach has for trusting in younger talents.
‘He’s suddenly really one of the go-to men,’ said Erasmus, and this was last September. ‘I’m here 14, 15, 16 weeks, but he is just one of the stand-out guys when it comes to natural ability.’
Sweetnam has become a regular on the team, making 23 appearances this season and starting in every one of them. That trend should continue with the expectation he will be cleared to play against Saracens, after concussion took him out of last week’s win against Ulster after less than two minutes.
Brian O’Driscoll is a fan, taking to Twitter during the spring to comment: ‘Big fan of Darren Sweetnam. Think he’ll be capped by the end of the year’.
That looks a certainty, with Sweetnam sure to be part of Joe Schimdt’s tour to the US and Japan in the summer.
The crowds will get bigger as his talent manifests itself and contributes to the regeneration of Munster. Yet it will take some time before he plays rugby in front of an attendance larger than the one in August 2012 he alluded to in an earlier quote.
That harks back to the first act in
the public sporting life of Darren Sweetnam when, for a number of months, he was anticipated as one of the men to revive Cork hurling.
He is from Dunmanaway and hurled with local club the Dohenys (he also played hockey, representing Ireland at Under 16 level).
Sweetnam’s late teens coincided with the second coming of Cork’s king, when Jimmy Barry Murphy came back to manage the county’s senior hurlers.
This was in the spring of 2012. Along with Conor Lehane and Lorcán McLoughlin, Sweetnam was part of the future Cork could no longer ignore as the great men of the 2000s were claimed by retirement.
Barry Murphy was starting the enormous job of replacing the most influential team the sport had ever seen, and it looked certain that Sweetnam would be central to it. He combined league matches earlier in the year with preparing for his Leaving Cert.
By the end of the summer, he played his part in an All-Ireland semi-final that Cork lost to Galway.
‘I’ll never forget that Galway game,’ he said in an interview a year ago. ‘It was some experience. I was just finished my Leaving Cert and we were playing in front of 65,000 in Croke Park. That was something I had never experienced before.
‘I came on just after half-time and I scored a point. You’d do the smallest thing on the pitch and the roar that came down from the stands was crazy.’
Within weeks, though, hurling was sidelined as Sweetnam was forced to choose between the sports. His deal with Munster was on an academy contract, and his disappearance from the bright lights that attended Croke Park flourishes was explained by the work needed to succeed as a professional sportsman.
Over the past year, his effort has been recognised. Greater rewards are now almost within reach.