If at first you don’t succeed and all that. Darragh Fanning has kept trying and, in finally breaking into the Leinster team at 26 years of age, the Dubliner has taken one of the more circuitous routes, via St Mary’s, Connacht, Tuggeranong Vikings in Canberra and St Mary’s again, to his province’s first team.
Not that he’s a complete novice at this level, having played eight games with Connacht in 2010-11 before Christmas before appendicitis pretty much ended his campaign. Budgetary limits meant they could not keep him on, although he doesn’t betray any resentment.
Fanning was not, by his own admission, weighed down with offers, so when his former St Mary’s coach Shaun McCarthy offered him the chance to go to Australia he snapped at it. He enjoyed Australia so much that he went back for a year and played semi-professional rugby with Tuggeranong Vikings before returning to Dublin for the second half of last season with St Mary’s.
"I loved my time there, but I got lucky when I came back that Joe Schmidt saw a couple of my games last season and got me involved in some of the A stuff at the end of last season. Then Matt (O'Connor) took me in on a training deal at the beginning of this season, and he and all the staff have been great."
Good timing
Having also broken into the Irish club side last season, Fanning's timing was good too, given the departure of Isa Nacewa, Andrew Conway and Fionn Carr, the delayed returns of Rob Kearney and Zane Kirchener, and niggling injuries to Luke Fitzgerald, Fergus McFadden and now his St Mary's team-mate Darren Hudson.
Originally signed on a training contract, after a couple of pre-season friendlies Fanning signed a short-term contract until January. One of the few downsides is his reduced role as captain at St Mary’s.
He'd given up on emulating his father Declan in playing for Leinster, whom he supported as a child, although he wouldn't have stopped playing. "Any of the lads who know me will tell you I will probably try to play for Mary's until I'm 40 so I'll never walk away but I had pretty much given up on the professional dream. If you had turned around to me, even eight weeks ago, and said 'you are going to play two friendly games and two Rabo league games for Leinster' I would have laughed at you. There was not a chance of that happening so, to an extent, I had given up on the dream."
Unexpected development
Revelling in Leinster's uber professional machine, he welcomes the arrival of Lote Tiqiri, and had it not been for this unexpected development, he's not sure what he'd been doing.
“There was talk of teaching but if you talked to my mates they might not agree! I was thinking of doing a teaching degree and I have spoken to people at St Mary’s College and they were keen to help me. Then again, I wasn’t sure, and I have a business degree as well, so something along that line.”
Fanning's emergence this season underlines the value of a provincial head coach who keeps regular tabs on the club game, as Schmidt did. The 26-year-old would have been lost to the Leinster net had it not been for the Ulster Bank League, and the emergence of Lansdowne duo, outhalf Craig Ronaldson and winger Matt Healy at Cardiff is further evidence of the talent to be tapped into in the club game.
“There actually is tons of talent in the AIL, if you talk to the lads here who play in it when they are not getting games here. I absolutely love playing for St Mary’s and I got to play in the Irish Amateur team. If you look at the talent in that set-up and you tell me those guys are not good enough to play professional rugby, you’d be wrong.”
Having played plenty of Sevens rugby with Australian and Malaysian clubs, he is also not alone in regretting Ireland is the only one of the world’s top 30 rugby nations without a Sevens team.
"I know Cian Aherne sees it as an opportunity for AIL guys and there are definitely a lot of seriously talented guys in the AIL that could represent us on the international stage."
IRELAND'S 42-MAN SQUAD
Backs (18): Rob Kearney (Leinster), Robbie Henshaw (Connacht), Tommy Bowe (Ulster), Simon Zebo (Munster), Niall Morris (Leicester), Dave Kearney (Leinster), Fergus McFadden (Leinster), Luke Fitzgerald (Leinster), Brian O'Driscoll (Leinster), Keith Earls (Munster), Luke Marshall (Ulster), Gordon D'Arcy (Leinster), Jonathan Sexton (Racing Metro 92), Paddy Jackson (Ulster), Ian Madigan (Leinster), Conor Murray (Munster), Eoin Reddan (Leinster), Isaac Boss (Leinster).
Forwards (24): Cian Healy (Leinster), David Kilcoyne (Munster), Jack McGrath (Leinster), Stephen Archer (Munster), Declan Fitzpatrick (Ulster), Mike Ross (Leinster), Rory Best (Ulster), Seán Cronin (Leinster), Richardt Strauss (Leinster), Mike Sherry (Munster), Donncha O'Callaghan (Munster), Paul O'Connell (Munster), Donnacha Ryan (Munster), Mike McCarthy (Leinster), Devin Toner (Leinster), Dan Tuohy (Ulster), Iain Henderson (Ulster), Peter O'Mahony (Munster), Kevin McLaughlin (Leinster), James Coughlan (Munster), Shane Jennings (Leinster), Seán O'Brien (Leinster), Jamie Heaslip (Leinster), Chris Henry (Ulster).
