Tom Tierney had to negotiate through more dark tunnels than most before running out onto the pitch in Brisbane for his Irish Test debut last Saturday. Under the brilliant Ballymore lights, the next few moments were the best he'd known, especially with the fireworks adding to his adrenalin charge.

"That was the best feeling ever. Ever," he repeats. "That was up there," he adds extending his hand above his head. "That's been my goal since I was a young fella. I thought it would never happen."

Privately, he thought about his mother and his late father, who died when Tierney was nine. "It was for them," he says simply.

His has been a longer 12,000 mile odyssey to get here than most.

The tunnel first darkened with that well documented sanctioning arising from a positive drugs test in an under-21 international in France in March of last year, which effectively stalled his promising career for a season.

But nothing in his background pointed to an international rugby career. His family had no contact with the game, his school, CBS, are a well-known hurling nursery, and his locale, Fairgreen, provided the winners of the FAI Junior Cup for the last three years in the form of Fairview.

Aside from football trials with Sheffield Wednesday and Ipswich, Tierney also played hurling with Claughaun in Limerick. "Hurling was always the sport that I played and loved, and I still do."

Meantime, Tierney had begun playing rugby at 10 with the Richmond under-12s. "I was asked to go down to Richmond by Tom Cusack and from the minute I went down I was hooked. It was a sport that I was kind of looking for, because you couldn't do much in soccer or hurling, the way you could tear into the rugby."

He played for the Irish Youths for three years from 16 to 18, captaining them in his third season. Eventually something had to give. "Well I was told to choose between the hurling and the rugby, so I just told him that I had rugby training and I couldn't go to hurling training. After that he wouldn't acknowledge me in class, which was grand because I never did anything," he laughs.

Given his coach/teacher was Willie Moore, who played corner back in the 1973 All-Ireland final, it showed a determined and feisty spirit.

Shannon, Young Munster and Garryowen were all covetously looking for Tierney by the time he'd played an AIL year with Richmond at 20, but he kept them waiting. "Because I wanted to make the right decision," he says with a roguish glint.

He'd known Phil Danaher from a Garryowen trip to Bath he'd been invited to. At this point in the interview his roommate Peter Clohessy passes through. "And Frank Hogan's wallet," interjects the interloper.

Ignoring this, Tierney continues: "I think it was more the type of rugby that they (Garryowen) play and Phil Danaher is very persuasive," he says with a laugh.

In his first year at Garryowen it's been said that he and the incumbent scrum-half Stephen McIvor never spoke. "Ah, we got on grand, but we had a bit of a run-in after one of the games, and then we had another run-in at a Munster trial. We don't see eye to eye, but it's probably natural enough with two guys going for the same position." Especially two loud, young, ambitious players not exactly deprived of self-confidence.

Frustrated about not being first-choice in his first year, there was talk of the impatient Tierney joining another Limerick club. "But in fairness to the kid he stayed," recalls Danaher, "and all for a pair of boots. `Okay Danzer, I'll stay so,' he said."

What kept him going was the Irish under-21s. "I was chuffed about that, being a youths player, because mostly it's players from the schools system that get into that team. It really went well, we won the Triple Crown."

Then, unbeknown to all but a select few, his world fell in after that fateful day when he was tested, and the results revealed traces of the banned substance ephedrine. It assuredly cost him a tour place to South Africa last summer and stalled his Munster career before finally he was publicly sanctioned last November. If nothing else, he was unlucky to be the only player named at a time when the media and rugby public were baying for names.

"It was very tough when it came out and my name was all over the papers for the wrong reasons. A lot of people in bars would be smart at times," he says, then laughs when the Claw repeats some of the slagging.

The laughing subsides. "It was terrible. I couldn't plan anything because I didn't know what my future held. It was very long though. Jesus, it was a terrible part of my career and my life so far. The worst part I think, `cos I didn't know whether I was coming or going."

He agrees that seeing it all slip away makes him more appreciative of having it back again. "I'm just thankful that I got my second chance. Yeah, I really appreciate it now. I'd say it must be great to get your chance without doing anything wrong in the past, but to do something wrong and know that you were a bit silly and foolish, and then to get the chance again. It's extra special.

"I was silly for not telling the team doctor that I had taken a cough bottle. I am a bad traveller and I was sick, so I got sea legs, or travel tablets."

Garryowen stood by him, stumping up to about £20,000 in legal fees during the protracted case. "Garryowen were brilliant. There's not a hope of me leaving the club now."

The lowest moment in that year? "Going into that tribunal was an absolute nightmare. I came up to Dublin the night before and stayed in my brother's house. I didn't sleep a wink that night. I suppose those 24 hours were the worst."

The Saturday after the ruling of November 18th, in a friendly against Old Crescent at Rosbrien, he felt his life beginning again without that monkey on his back.

A knee injury with Munster had effectively left him with only a Garryowen AIL campaign to relaunch his representative hopes, and finally a big chance in the A game against England.

Ironically, he only earned his tour place because of toe and thumb injuries in turn to Conor McGuinness and Brian O'Meara. At first he'd thought he had a month's break and was preparing himself for a holiday in Playa del Ingles with Davey Wallace, Frank Sheehan and Ronan O'Gara. Cocky little fellas like himself? "They are yeah, you have to be." Tierney got the news of his call-up from Donal Lenihan nine days before the squad assembled in Greystones. "I got a phone call at 1.00 on the Tuesday. He said: `we've got a problem with the scrum-half position. Brian O'Meara has to have surgery on his thumb, and you're next in line. So, if you've got a suitcase, you're going'. I nearly fell down the stairs."

Danaher collected him from his house for the drive from Limerick, and the assistant Irish coach says "all the little old ladies were out to wave good-bye to him. It was a lovely moment."

As his roommate reminds Tierney, the irreverent scrum-half was moved from the front seat when they collected Clohessy, before Danaher was stopped and fined for speeding. The policeman asked the driver "do you realise you're putting your passengers' lives at risk?" To which Danaher quipped: "the country might be better off without them two."

Initially just delighted to be in the squad, gradually Tierney's ambitions rose. "I think I've done very well, yeah," he admits.

After a week working on his own aerobic fitness, and then with the squad, he felt his fitness levels soar. "Whether I could handle the pace was the only worry I really had, but the first game went really well, even if we weren't up against much."

Once "a big, lazy fella", according to Danaher, Tierney admits: "Last year was my first at being professional. Before that I would have been a bit lazy, yeah. Hard to get training. If I was a small bit tired I'd let it go until tomorrow. I've really worked hard on getting that part of me right and with the way it's gone professional, it's a case of having to."

He's cocky, which is good, he's big, strong and quick, and handled himself well under hugely difficult circumstances against the brilliant George Gregan in what, overall, was a promising enough debut.

However, his career has taught him not to look too far ahead. "I'm not taking anything for granted. Next game, I'll try and play well in that, and then next week's training, I'll take it from there.

"I'm just living for the next game."