THERE’S A WRY smile from 23-year-old Munster hooker Diarmuid Barron when he’s asked if he finds the international exploits of his similarly aged Leinster counterparts, Rónan Kelleher and Dan Sheehan, inspiring.
He acquiesces to begin with. Then he adds: “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t slightly envious.
“I know the two lads for a few years now and they’re top-class players. I wish them all the best, obviously, and they’re doing a great job, and all I can do is try replicate what they’re doing at the moment because, in fairness to them, they’re in great form.
Look, I can only look after what I’m doing and — I suppose it is cliché as well, but — do the best I can. If that means something down the line, that’s fine. But at the moment, everything for me is about Munster — and it has been since I started playing rugby when I was a kid. Munster is everything to me and that’s all I’m concentrating on.
It wasn’t always thus for the New Inn, Co. Tipperary man, who within a mad season for Munster has enjoyed a mad couple of months personally: Barron made his first European appearance for the province at home to Castres in December and, a month ago yesterday, signed a new contract which will keep him in Limerick until 2024.
These are truly dream times for the childhood Cashel RFC and now Garryowen clubman, but they were dreams Barron began to harbour later in life than many.
“I suppose I’m from an area in Tipperary where it’s mainly GAA. There’s a few rugby players that have come out of there — the likes of Denis Leamy, Denis Fogarty. Twenty minutes away is Alan Quinlan.
GAA was first for me and then rugby, but when I started playing rugby, I grew to love it. What stuck with me with rugby was probably the ability to take it to a new level physically. Being on that borderline with aggression was probably what I enjoyed most.
“Coming through Rockwell [College], everything you hear of Munster — when you’re a kid, anyway — is about the Heineken Cup,” Barron continues. “And then obviously as you get older, you hear about the domestic league and how big that is as well. But first and foremost when I was a kid, seeing Munster was about the Heineken Cup, about ’06 and ’08. That was massive and I know it makes me and my family massively proud to have played for Munster in the Champions Cup and been a part of that.”
A year on from Barron’s graduation from Munster’s academy, there is still a novelty to his being involved in matchday squads. As for whom he informs first: “I suppose my parents would be the first people to be nagging me, anyway, to see if I’m playing or not!” Barron laughs. “But look, they’ve gotten better at that too, at giving me my space.
“But yeah, it would be my parents, my girlfriend, then friends and family. My parents have brought me the length and breadth of the country to play rugby, to play GAA, play sports and, obviously, they’ve been by my side the whole way.”
Coming back home to New Inn as a senior Munster player, too, is “absolutely massive”.
“Just even to go back, when I meet people on the street and they like to talk about it, it fills me with a lot of pride, y’know?
“And there’s other guys who I was in school with, Sean O’Connor and Bill Johnston, who were also lucky enough to play for Munster and I know it meant an awful lot to them too. They’ve moved on since.
“It’s absolutely huge to me. To be able to represent a small parish and the town I grew up in, as well, is obviously very rewarding.”
Barron will make his 24th senior appearance for fifth-placed Munster when they travel to Scotstoun to face third-placed Glasgow Warriors in the URC tonight (8:15pm, TG4).
Glasgow attack coach Nigel Carolan, the former Ireland U20s head coach, will take charge of the hosts with Danny Wilson absent following a positive Covid test.
Dynamic hooker Barron likens Glasgow to Munster in their being a club proud of their heritage, and asked if he thinks a niggle still exists between the two sides, he smiles: “I’d say so. I can only imagine so.”
It will be the first of 11 games into which Munster face in the next 12 weeks, and Barron adds that he doesn’t think “there are many places like going to Scotstoun and starting the block on such a difficult challenge”.
Clonakilty lock Cian Hurley will be the 59th player to line out for Munster this season should he enter the fray from the bench, and Johann van Graan and co. will need to lean on depth in this most punishing of upcoming schedules, which includes a tour of South Africa and back-to-back trips to Leinster and Exeter in March and April.
Gavin Coombes, meanwhile, has been released from international duty and starts, as does Simon Zebo for his 150th provincial cap.
Closer to Barron’s own wheelhouse, Niall Scannell is back in full training and will undoubtedly have his eyes on regaining the red no.2 jersey. Barron, though, while he has no intention of relinquishing it, will enjoy every moment he dons it as though it’s his first and last.
“I think everyone goes out in the mind frame that you still have to grab your opportunity even if you’re 100 games down the line because there are people — whether it’s behind you or in front of you — that are willing to grab every opportunity as best they can,” he says.
“You know there’s competition for places and, obviously, getting a run of games is brilliant just in terms of trying to hit your straps and form but every time you play for Munster, it’s a massive deal and I’m under no illusion in that. It makes me very proud to do so.”
Munster
15. Mike Haley
14. Shane Daly
13. Chris Farrell
12. Rory Scannell
11. Simon Zebo
10. Ben Healy
9. Neil Cronin
1. Jeremy Loughman
2. Diarmuid Barron
3. Stephen Archer
4. Jean Kleyn
5. Fineen Wycherley
6. Jack O’Donoghue (Captain)
7. Chris Cloete
8. Gavin Coombes
Replacements:
16. Kevin O’Byrne
17. Josh Wycherley
18. John Ryan
19. Cian Hurley
20. Alex Kendellen
21. Paddy Patterson
22. Jack Crowley
23. John Hodnett
Glasgow Warriors
15. Ollie Smith
14. Sebastian Cancelliere
13. Robbie Fergusson
12. Sam Johnson
11. Rufus McLean
10. Duncan Weir
9. George Horne
1. Oli Kebble
2. Fraser Brown
3. Simon Berghan
4. Scott Cummings
5. Richie Gray
6. Ryan Wilson (Captain)
7. Thomas Gordon
8. Jack Dempsey
Replacements:
16. Johnny Matthews
17. Nathan McBeth
18. Enrique Pieretto
19. Kiran McDonald
20. Ally Miller
21. Jamie Dobie
22. Domingo Miotti
23. Stafford McDowall
Match Officials
Referee: Gianluca Gnecchi
Assistant Referees: Keith Allen & David Sutherland
TMO: Neil Paterson
The42 Rugby Weekly / SoundCloud
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