Darren Sweetnam: Thomond thrill even outshone Croke Park

When he choose a career as a professional rugby player over inter-county hurling, Darren Sweetnam believed he would never again experience anything to match the thrill of playing in an All-Ireland semi-final.

He was there in 2012 and even though Cork lost to Galway, it was still a wonderful experience for a 19-year-old. Soon afterwards, however, Darren chose rugby as his sporting way forward. He quickly graduated to the Cork Constitution AIL team before Munster came calling and that duly led to a place on the team to face the Maori All Blacks a couple of weeks ago.

“I haven’t experienced anything like it in my life,” he enthuses. “It was incredible. 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!”