Darren Sweetnam: 'I don’t even look back now. It was definitely the right decision'

There was a time, not so long ago, that Darren Sweetnam was questioning whether he had made the right move in forsaking an inter-county career with the Cork hurlers for the pipedream of professional sport.

Inside a packed Aviva Stadium last Saturday night, as the 24-year-old came off the bench for a debut in Test rugby in the dying minutes of Ireland’s romp to victory over South Africa, those moments of doubt must have seemed a very distant memory.

This evening, the rising Munster star from Dunmanway will get to do it all over again, this time for a first international start against Fiji and with a place in Ireland’s World Cup squad for Japan 2019 the ultimate objective as Sweetnam moves onto the next leg of a rare sporting journey.