Last October was a month that few involved in Munster rugby will ever forget. After the tragic passing of Anthony Foley, Munster played Glasgow in the Champions Cup just a week later. Winning 38-17, they delivered an incredible performance on a day packed with emotion.
Munster coach and former Munster and Ireland forward Jerry Flannery played with Foley and coached alongside him in what was a tough 2015/16 season, with Munster under-performing and attendances falling. Flannery gave an incredibly powerful interview to Off the Ball tonight about the Glasgow game and the events surrounding Foley's death, news of which he had to break to many of Foley's closest friends. He also revealed that he was embarrassed by Munster's string of bad results, not least when in the company of former team-mates among whom he had soldiered in the famous red jersey for years.
This embarrassment, however, changed into pride after the Glasgow game - a change epitomised by a simple text sent to Flannery by fellow Munster legend Donncha O'Callaghan:
I can't stress enough how proud I was after the Glasgow game, when the ex-players, the guys who I'd been almost ashamed to look in the eye from the previous season, when I saw how proud they were of the current players. Donncha O'Callaghan sent me a great text, he said: 'I know I shouldn't have come into the dressing room afterwards, but I had to go in and thank those lads.' And I know that it wasn't just Donncha - I know that Denis Leamy and David Wallace, Paul O'Connell, for ROG as well...all those lads, if you could have given them boots they would have played.
To have those other lads (the current side) who had probably the most crazy week of preparation and then had to go out and play against a really good side as well, in the European Cup, to put on that kind of performance is amazing.
You always wonder, is that kind of magic for Munster, is that gone, is that dead...that really showed me that it was there.
Take some time and listen to the full interview here. It's very honest from Flannery and well worth your time.
