IN LATE DECEMBER, Diarmuid Barron thought his season was over. The Munster hooker injured his foot in the St Stephen’s Day defeat to Leinster and the early prognosis wasn’t good. Surgery was required, and the prospect of playing again this season appeared optimistic at best.
Yet after a long, often frustrating rehab programme, Barron is back to lend his weight to Munster’s URC title defence, coming on as a 47th-minute replacement in Friday’s quarter-final defeat of Ospreys.
The home supporters were delighted to see the Tipperary native back on the field, but no-one in Thomond Park was happier than the man himself.
“I was tired enough come the last five or 10 minutes but it was good, it was great,” said Barron.
“It’s incredibly enjoyable to get back out there. I’ve been pretty lucky in terms of the long-term injuries, I’ve had very little of them and when you do get one you realise how lucky you are to be playing and to come straight back into a quarter-final was extra special.”
The main frustration with the recovery programme was the uncertainty around when he might return. Graham Rowntree kept a close eye throughout and felt the hooker was “flying”, while accepting the need to be cautious with his return.
“I thought my season was done, to be honest,” Barron says. “It’s an injury you don’t mess around with, as well, so I’ve been told a lot, but then as I was progressing you can see light at the end of the tunnel.
“You’ve got to be real with yourself as well. If you are getting pain in it you have to pull back. There was no messing around with it.
“You’ve no option but to accept it. There is peaks and troughs, I was flying it at the start, tearing into it and there was a bit of pain came back and I didn’t really know where I stood with it. So peaks and troughs but as the saying goes, ‘the only way out of it is into it’ so that’s how it was.
“I would have been six weeks non-weight bearing, so that’s keep the foot up, just crutching around the place. But in fairness to Mossy Lawler [skills coach], he has you in sitting down doing skills and stuff pretty much straight away, just keeping your eye in and that was great, being able to sit in on a few boxes and pass away, whether it was JK [Jean Kleyn] or Roman Salanoa.”
To have Barron back is a major boost ahead of Saturday’s semi-final meeting with Glasgow Warriors.
The Cashel man has become an important figure under Graham Rowntree, captaining the province for the first time last November and continuing in the role when Peter O’Mahony stepped down as skipper.
A try-scorer when Munster beat the Stormers in last year’s URC final, Barron reveals one of the squad’s biggest motivating factors this season is the opportunity to win as a group on home soil, with last year’s decider played 14,000km away in Cape Town.
“Yeah, that’s a definite thing. When 30 lads travel halfway across the world it’s very hard to stay connected, as much as people try to,” Barron says.
You come home and you celebrate together but I’ve no doubt that those lads would have felt disconnected from it, if we were to be real about it.
“Even though they’ve trained every day, and a lot of lads would have played a lot of games throughout the year, when there is that physical gap it’s hard to be connected.
“Playing the games here has definitely made life a little bit easier for those lads and it could make it tougher in ways, you’re more attached to it where if it’s happened down the other side of the world you can take a step back I suppose. But it’s nice to meet up with the lads after that match and be straight back in on Monday and train with everyone again.”
Munster’s form has been patchy at times in terms of performances, but like last year, Rowntree’s team have built momentum through an impressive post-Christmas winning run. Friday’s defeat of Ospreys saw Munster claim their 10th straight league win – their best run since the title-winning 2010/11 season.
Old foes Glasgow will be no pushover on Saturday, but with that home final on the cards Munster are feeling good about their prospects of going back-to-back.
“It’s a lot of the same group [as last season] really. I think we’d be silly not to have belief in ourselves in terms of the squad we have and the work we put in. I think the lads have been fantastic, the way everyone applies themselves every day.
“Results haven’t gone our way at times and that’s just life, that’s rugby, but it’s very exciting, coming down the back straight of the season when knockout games come along, and to be able to do it in Thomond which is a bit different to how we had to do it last year is extra special, to have family here and friends here and it’s only an hour down the road for them.
“We’ve come unstuck a few times against Glasgow. So very, very tough opposition and a few really word-class players as well so we’re under no illusions.
“We’ve got to bring our A Game on the weekend or we’ll find ourselves out of the competition. That’s the reality of the URC now, it’s become a real battle to get into the last rounds, the teams in there are really getting better every year and the competition is massive.”
