RUGBY:A Londoner by birth but now very much part of the establishment in Connacht, Michael Swift tells GERRY THORNLEYhe still has plenty of ambitions to fulfil

HE WAS hailed as his province’s Players’ Player of the Season last May. He has made more appearances in the European Challenge Cup than any other player in the tournament’s history. Already his province’s most capped player of all time, this evening he will become Connacht’s most capped Magners League player ever as well. His name is Michael Swift.

He shouldn’t really require an introduction, but to say that Swift is an unsung hero of Irish rugby is putting it mildly. Both he and Andrew Farley have overtaken the local legend that is their head coach, Eric Elwood, and, now out on his own, tonight he eclipses Farley’s mark of 113 League appearances.

“Ten years ago I wouldn’t have believed this. But over the years I came to settle here, and it’s my home now. To take over from Eric’s record was special, after playing with the guy. I’m sure I’ll text Andrew in Grenoble over the week to tell him his (league) record is gone now.”

Now in his 11th season with the westerners, the London-born lock of Irish parents may still have a hint of a cockney twang, and peppers his sentence with the concluding: “do you know what I mean?”

But he’s long bought into the whole Connacht zeitgeist.

“The work ethic is immense. What we lacked in player ability years ago we always made up for with our team ethic, and that probably got us the results that we might not have expected. Because it’s always a special thing to play for Connacht, and that goes with it, playing against all the elements. You have to be a strong character to play with Connacht.”

Ask him how Connacht compare now to when he first joined them in the summer of 2000 and Swift says there’s no comparison, recalling the one small stand with one-bar heaters and the pink dressing-room.

“That’s been knocked down now, we’ve got a great stand far side and there’s talk of putting a covering over the hard core supporters in the terraces, which they deserve.”

Each year that loyal core grows and strengthens its ties to the team, and Swift talks with all the passion any home-grown son of Connacht could muster when discussing this battle as well.

“In Galway there’s a lot of distractions. It’s a gorgeous city, it’s a holiday destination and both hurling and gaelic football are big here, which is unusual, so there’s quite a competition to get the crowds. But we’re trying to build a brand here now.”

He’s pretty much seen it all in the last decade, and the nadir was undoubtedly the IRFU’s threat to disband Connacht towards the end of the 2002-’03 season.

“It’s not just people’s profession. Connacht represents one of the four provinces in Ireland.

“To completely disregard one is not only disrespectful to the team, but to the Irish population, particularly in the west of Ireland, do you know what I mean? That was the lowest point but people came out in support and showed their true colours, and showed how important rugby is in the west of Ireland, because if it went then God knows what we’d be talking about now.”

Not tonight’s game anyway.

Desperately disappointing though last season’s Amlin Challenge Cup semi-final defeat was to mega-bucks Toulon, it was also the high point of a decade’s toiling, in some respects.

“For me personally it was a coming together of things that we’d built up over the years, having 7 or 8,000 people in the Sportsground. It was a gorgeous night and just the singing of The Fields of Athenry and The West’s Awake put hairs on the back of my neck. I remember doing half a length of the pitch and for me it was worth 10 years of hard work in terms of building the brand.”

The threat to Connacht’s existence would have been particularly unnerving for Swift as his first season with Richmond (1998-’99) under John Kingston concluded with their demise. Injuries to both Ben Clarke and Scott Quinnell had afforded the 21-year-old Swift a run in the Richmond first team, but the week he was then offered his first full-time contract the club’s then owner, Ashley Lovett, withdrew his backing. Team-mates at the time included Dan McFarland, his long-time Connacht team-mate and now forwards coach, Clarke, Quinnell, Agustin Pichot and Alan Bateman.

After a season with Leeds Tykes, where he learned the tricks of the backrow trade from coach Phil Davies, Kingston invited him over to play with Galwegians.

“That’s when you played club rugby and the provincial stuff,” he points out. “There’s not many of us left that can say that.”

Galwegians reached the semi-finals of the AIL when losing to the star-studded eventual winners Dungannon.

“I managed to get a yellow card for a high tackle on Paddy Johns, however that was possible?” And the following season the Celtic League was born.

His roots were also what drew him to Ireland. His father Jim is from Wexford town and his mum Frances hails from Dun Laoghaire. They emigrated to London at the ages of 17 and 15, and met a year later. Jim used to work for the London Underground and Frances was a receptionist in the AE at Charing Cross Hospital. He grew up in Fulham in West London and first played rugby in the London Oratory School, a Catholic, voluntary aided, comprehensive secondary school in Fulham where Tony Blair famously sent his children.

Swift was already 6’ 4” in his first year there, when one of the rugby coaches took one look and simply said: “Right, you’re playing rugby.” His mates also went to Richmond on Sundays and Swift followed suit. He played for the England under-16s and under-18s, but summer holidays in Wexford re-enforced the Irish connection and he also played for the Exiles alongside, amongst others, Geordan Murphy and Andrew Sheridan.

Elwood reveals that about six years ago Swift was cruising along until prompted to switch to the second row, where he reinvented himself, and Swift agrees that it probably extended his career.

“I was never the most agile or quickest six in the world. I piled on the weight when I made the move and I haven’t looked back. You realise what you’re good at and what you’re not good at the older you get. I’m not the most expansive player in the world but what I do, I do effectively. And if you have that backrow experience you’re going to get that work-rate and that tackle count in the secondrow.”

He turned 33 last Monday and would joke, self-deprecatingly, that despite the monicker “Swifty” he never had much pace to lose anyway. But he admits he’s probably never felt fitter or been playing better, which is just as well as the new law amendments mean that, like all locks, he’s having to make more tackles and more ball carries.

Looking at 35-year-old All Black Brad Thorn gives Swift the belief that he can have a few more years in his own career.

“He does what it says on the tin. He does the hard work,” says Elwood, heavily stressing the word hard. “He does the carrying, he does the tackling, he does the whacking, he does the scrummaging, he does all the hard donkey work, all the physical work. He does not shirk responsibility, he’s a great grafter. For a big man he has great fitness levels. He’s one of the players who you’d say even his muscles have corners on them. He’s awkward as hell.”

Elwood is clearly a Swift fan. “I couldn’t speak highly enough of him, he’s been terrific for us,” adds the Connacht coach.

“A great squad man, well liked by everybody. I don’t know anybody who would ever have a bad word to say about Michael Swift. Great in all aspects, I’m not just saying it.”

Such honest toiling has invariably earned him a cult following, witness the roar for the huge hit he put in during Connacht’s 15-all bruiser with Ulster at the Sportsground last month. But he has his flashier moments too, not least when finishing off a pitch-length contender for try of the season with that distinctive knee-high gallop into the corner against Leinster in the corresponding fixture last season.

Swift and Connacht owe Bradley plenty, but now Elwood is endeavouring to take Connacht on to another level.

“In terms of being passionate, he is Mr Connacht,” says Swift. “We’d jump mountains for him; that never comes into question. But also there’s everything else that comes with Eric, all the back-up. Having a full-time defensive coach, an attack coach, it brings a new intensity to attack and defence, and also with Conor McPhillips coming in (as video analyst). So you don’t want to let any of them down now, because they each look at the ins and outs of your position.”

Furthermore, there’s a core of hard-nosed players in the team now, be they indigenous like Gavin Duffy, John Muldoon and Johnny O’Connor, or adopted sons – like Swift himself, Keith Matthews, Ray Ofisa and so on – who’ve been there a while.

With the advent of Elwood to the throne, an expanded League and the IRFU’s one-year contracts, the thought occurs that if Connacht don’t make strides this season one wonders when they ever will.

“That’s what we talked about all pre-season,” admits Swift. “We have to change it this year. The way we’ve started has showed that. Obviously we had a little bit of an aberration in Italy (the defeat to Cavalieri Estra) but generally we’ve progressed in the right way, and that’s why this Saturday is vital in terms of making a statement in the league.”

And reaching the Heineken Cup for the first time, by whatever route necessary, is the Holy Grail. He has one record which, ideally, he does not want to add on to beyond this season.

“Even though I think have the most caps in the Challenge Cup, I wouldn’t like to add to it any more next season.”

Position: Lock.

Date of Birth: 18/10/1977, London.

Height: 6"5'/1.96m. Weight: 18st 2lbs /115kg.

International Representation: England U16, U18.

Career path: Richmond, Leeds, Galwegians and Connacht.

Connacht landmarks: Games played 79 (Connacht record); Magners League games 113 (equals Connacht record); Challenge Cup 60 (tournament record).