It was a week for remembrance and tribute, of flashing images of Anthony Foley bulldozing through players while wearing Shannon blue, Munster red and Ireland green. A week when a nation mourned the loss of a great man and somehow a province had to countenance a game to be played.
The game was the strangest of bookends to this week. The traffic flowed through North Cork as ever this morning, and pockets of red made their way to Thomond as they always do but the notion of a game, of being caught up in something else, of worrying about a line-out or a scrum seemed ridiculous but then there have been thousands of these instances when the character of Anthony Foley was revealed to us throughout Munster’s glory years.
That’s why so many came to pay tribute, his honesty of effort and raw talent are in the foundations of those towering stands at Thomond and they are the pillars of how Munster will always play.
The rise and relative fall of Munster can be traced to success like anything else, but the foundation of Stand Up and Fight, of garryowens screaming down on English full-backs and the twinge of mysticism that still surrounds the club comes from men like Anthony Foley.
It’s impossible to quantify grief or shock at a loss of a man like this. How do you explain your grief for someone who you never met or had no personal connection to? How to describe that pang of shock when the news jolts back at you throughout the week?
Sport does manage to put these things into perspective and it does manage to convey the magnitude of the man. It did so with the circle formed at full-time with players, staff and Foley’s two sons. Stand Up And Fight rang around the stadium and what this man has passed down coursed through a club once more.
Today’s captain Peter O’Mahony fought back the tears during the moment’s silence before the game but when the whistle went he was back urging on his troops. You can draw a line from Foley to Paul O’Connell to now O’Mahony, captains hewed from rock who favour confrontation and honest battle. Foley’s legacy could be seen todaY every carry, in every cheeky referee exchange, in every calculated on field decision.
The game came and went in a fury and flurry. Munster brought raw emotion into every little battle and destroyed Glasgow at every turn. It was the type of performance that defined the Heineken Cup years. Tyler Bleyendaal cruised around at fly-half and Munster’s scrum decimated Glasgow in the first half. Taken in isolation, it was a hugely encouraging performance for the rest of the season but this was a tribute first, performance second.
Things such as bonus points or minor injuries, those little things that make up our emotional investment in sport are parked ever so briefly, we’ll return to worrying about them too much in time.
It was strange to think about or care about a game today but then Foley’s great friend Alan Quinlan said at full time that Foley would be thinking about the next game.
The games will be played. They’ll be won or lost and we’ll always look and worry about the next one.
Because of men like Axel Foley.
