Powerful words about a man who made Munster great by powerful deeds.
This evening [6pm kick-off] at the RDS, Ireland take on England in a legends match that is being held in honour of Munster and Ireland great Anthony ‘Axel’ Foley.
In the past two weeks, The Hard Yards rugby podcast has spoken to three men that knew him intimately from their time in Munster red and Ireland green.
Ahead of what will surely be an emotional evening in Dublin, we felt there would be no better way of paying tribute to Axel than sharing their recollections and thoughts on the late, great No.8. Without further ado, we bring you Ronan O’Gara, Donncha O’Callaghan and Jerry Flannery.
Donncha O’Callaghan
“It is a cringey thing to say but that group were a band of brothers. As soon as you meet there is a special bond and [Axel] was the leader of that. He motivated us, and me in particular, to play beyond myself. He just saw something or could strike a chord in a speech before a match and could inspire me to pay better than I actually am.
“I am massively thankful for that.
“We lost a team-mate, a friend, a brother. But there are two little boys who lost their dad and, as a father, that is the thing that kicks in more than anything. You look at Tony and Danny and they have lost their Dad. The whole family have lost their father, their son, that is the bit that matters. Those boys need to know that their dad is superman. He led by example – his character, his values were through the roof and he brought guys with him. He is a special, special man.”
Ronan O’Gara
“I think we see things differently now after what happened with Axel.”
Jerry Flannery
“It never goes back to normal because there is no back to normal, now that Axel is gone.
“We reference him at Munster every single week. You don’t ever want to be clichéd when you talk about Axel or be manipulative to get results or inspire performances. We just talk about performances and effort when we talk about Axel because that’s all he ever wanted.
“It only came about after Axel passed that the focus switched from outcome to effort and, I know it sounds corny but, giving it your all every time you go out. And us, as a management group, we’ve realised that it’s okay to make mistakes.
“We used to paralyse ourselves in the fear of making an error and that used to frustrate Axel so much… We used to get so caught up on winning and losing and when Axel passed it was a real eye-opener for all of us.”
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