It’s hard to know what was running through Liam Coombes’ mind following the final whistle of the Shute Shield Grand Final last year.
He had just added Sydney’s top club rugby championship to his trophy cabinet, alongside a URC title and Munster Schools Rugby Senior Cup medal. Was it joy he was feeling, after years of injury struggles and setbacks, or pride, for proving himself on the other side of the world? Feeling vindicated maybe, after his departure from Munster.
Coombes had his own way of describing the moment, “it was mad.”
That sums it up as well as anything. Less than eight weeks on from landing in Australia and fans were swarming the pitch after his adopted club, the Warringah Rats claimed the title for the first time since 2017.
The scenes were special, “the whole Rats fan base ran out onto the pitch after the game, and we were all surrounded. The next thing you know, this crew from back home all came running up to me.”
“I had so many friends down here when I arrived. There are more lads out here than at home,” admitted the 28-year-old.
He made the move following the highest period of Irish emigration Down Under since 2013. Coombes joined the ever-growing cohort looking for respite from the high-pressure, professional environments back home.
Only a year earlier, that escape felt a long way off. Coombes was in the middle of a seemingly Sisyphean rehabilitation journey, spending his days at the High-Performance Centre at University of Limerick. Plagued by hamstring injuries for nearly three years, he was hoping to get a run of games to prove himself.
Instead, another setback came. While playing for Garryowen, he felt a strain in his pec during a tackle. “It wasn’t actually the most sore thing but it got worse as the evening went on and then I got a scan and it turned out that it was ruptured.”
Surgery followed, along with the all too familiar rehab routine. The timing could hardly have been worse.
As contract discussions began, Coombes found head coach Ian Costello. “I asked him straight out, would they be keeping me on?
“He came back to me a couple of days later and just explained the situation; they wouldn’t be. It was based on availability, so it was obviously cutting, but I was half expecting it as well.”
There was interest from France, but nothing materialised. For the first time, Coombes was faced with life outside of rugby, “other than the farming at home, rugby is all I’ve known. So actually, having to earn money from working a normal job was different for me, and just trying to make enough money to pay your rent and groceries was a challenge.”
Australia was the backup plan; Coombes had spent some time there the previous summer and had enjoyed the lifestyle. He reached out to Alex McHenry, his former Munster teammate, who had won the Shute Shield the year before with Eastern Suburbs.
“They were fairly stacked for my position,” said Coombes, “so he had a friend in a different club, and he got on to him.
“It turned out that they had an injury to their winger, maybe a week before, so they were interested. I found out on a Sunday morning I wasn’t going to get something in France and then booked a flight straight away and flew out that night”.
The window to get registered for the playoffs was so tight that Coombes ended up at training hours after his plane touched down.
Coombes took to the Aussie style straight away and finally got the injury-free run he had been hoping for. “I felt I had energy for games, where I could perform and really enjoy it. It was a breath of fresh air to be honest.”
The rush to get registered meant Coombes had gone in almost blind, “I wasn’t sure how good the team was. I knew they were top three [in the league] when I joined, but we wouldn’t have been favourites to win it or anything, so that was a pretty cool few weeks.”
The Rats met Eastern Suburbs in the final, the same team that told Coombes they were stacked in his position. Lined up opposite Australian international Darby Lancaster, Coombes had the final say.
Looking ahead, Coombes is taking a break from rugby to focus on exams and the usual troubles of regional work visas and sponsorships that so many Irish emigrants understand.
For now, at least he’s managed to go out on his own terms. With his accountancy exams coming up in June, there’s a lot to balance, and he hasn’t ruled out a return once those are behind him.