Andrew Smith seeks strong end to Munster sojourn

Andrew Smith has had a fairly low-key, understated time of it in his one-year sojourn to Munster. Yet, allowing for a 10-week absence from mid-December to the end of February, he's gone about his work effectively and dependably, and as "an important player" to Munster's system according to Anthony Foley, has effectively been an ever-present.

Yet the 29-year-old will probably be seeking newer pastures next season, while staying in the northern hemisphere. He knew what he was signing up to when penning a one-year deal, yet will clearly move on with a hint of regret.

“I haven’t decided yet so I’m not sure what the movements are. I’m keen to stay out this way somewhere. If it’s at Munster or it’s somewhere else, that’s what I’m looking to do at the moment. I’ll just have to wait and see.”

A likeable, easy-going and modest type (a trait he admires in his favourite sportsman, Roger Federer) “Smithie” was also known more imaginatively as “Sockets”, which dates “way back” to playing for Australia in Sevens. “The most random thing,” he says laughing. “I was sitting having dinner and the guy next to me said: ‘jeez, you’ve got deep eye sockets. It was literally a random comment and it followed me around from team to team.”

Had to adapt

Akin to almost all Aussies who make the trek to these shores, he’s had to adapt, as much to the conditions as anything else. Throw in meritocratic qualification, and the quasi knock-out format of even the pool stages in Europe, and Smith also notes that “every game is crucial and massive, and you’ve got to be right up there for every game, which is a good thing as well – you want competitive rugby week to week.” He’s also found the games more physical, and more competitive at the breakdown.

But he’s loved the experience. Once, when asked what he’d have been if he hadn’t been a rugby player, Smith answered: “Confused and bored.” It was always something he wanted to do, having begun playing when he was about five in his native Sydney with Lindfield under-6s in the suburb where he grew up.

In Sydney, Smith explains, you grow up in either a die-hard rugby union or league family and his dad Michael, an accountant, played the former socially. He and Smith’s mum, Kathy, were always supportive of the game and of Smith’s career. Smith attended Shore, “a massive rugby union school”.

There’s also some speed in the gene pool. His grandfather, Roger Smith, was a very good sprinter who nearly made the Olympics for his native New Zealand. “He had a bad injury in the 100-metre Olympic trials. He did his hamstring.” Another grandfather is from Wales, which also explains the rugby union roots.

Injuries have blighted his career at times, beginning with his final school year. “I had big aims and goals to make the Australian schoolboys in my final year of school but in the first game I had an ankle injury, and the season is very short. You only play seven games, and that killed off my year.”

He still made the New South Wales academy and the Australia under-19s. But after two years in the academy, he broke a metatarsal in his left foot twice, which sidelined him for two years in his early 20s. He worked in “a liquor store” and studied a sports marketing and business degree full-time.

Most players don’t recover from a setback such as that but after two years without playing, friends had joined the Northern Suburbs club, so he followed suit. “I had no intention of playing seriously. I even went back to playing in the forwards just to have a bit of fun with my mates, and eventually got moved back to the backs.”

He made the first XV and the Brumbies brought him on a development tour to France in 2009. By the end of the tour he was voted “best back”, and remembers Bayonne were one of the opponents, and thinks Perpignan and Bordeaux were the others. His first contract with the Brumbies in 2010 followed, and he made his debut as a replacement against the Blues in Eden Park.

“The Blues had a pretty class backline and I was marking Joe Rokocoko. I had watched him on TV and knew he was a bit of a freak, and I was on the wing as well, not my preferred position. It was pretty daunting at the time, but I was fine. I was more excited and pumped, and the 20 minutes or so went very quickly. Time flew by. I don’t remember too much.”

Learned plenty

He made five appearances in Super Rugby the next season, and was an ever present for 15 games in 2012, also scoring four tries.

Stirling Mortlock

, who by then had moved on, and Adam Ashley-Cooper were also outside centres at the Brumbies, so sometimes Smith played on the wing, and he says he learned plenty from them.

Hamstring injuries and concussion made for a frustrating 2013, the highlight being the Brumbies’ win over the Lions in Canberra when Smith’s lovely feint to the inside, step and offload drew two men to put Tevita Kuridrani away for the game’s first try.

He says of that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: “It was a privilege and a massive honour, and one of those games that guys will remember for the rest of their lives.”

Great reputation

One to tell the grandchildren about alright, and indeed his two-year-old son Harrison, who he and Bianca happily brought to Munster in August.

“I was looking for an overseas’ venture. I’d had five years at the Brumbies. So I put it to my agent and he came back and said Munster were very keen. I was very happy with that because back home Munster have got a great reputation as being one of the premier clubs in the world.”

The Brumbies coach, and former Munster forwards coach Laurie Fisher gave him every encouragement. "It's been everything I expected. The fans are so passionate, and the atmosphere is incredible, like nothing you experience back home. The atmosphere is just completely different. It's been a good experience."

A league title would wrap his year up perfectly. “I’ve never won a professional trophy at the Brumbies or anything like that, just a few club things. That’s what we play for, to win the championship. To bow out of the European Cup was disappointing but we’ve got to this to focus on, and the Ulster game is a really important game to get that home semi-final, and that’s what we’ve been aiming for, to finish top two and get that home semi-final, which could really set up our year.”