“I take great solace that others won’t know the pain we know” – Axel’s life-saving legacy

“All that pressure he was under, and there he is dropping me in dog food he’d thought to pick up on the way back from Limerick.”

We are days out from Ireland taking on New Zealand at a sold-out Aviva Stadium, when a tribute song to the late Anthony Foley will be launched in from of 50,000 rugby supporters.

Orla Foley, Anthony’s sister, and Barry Murphy, who played with him at Munster, are remembering a friend, brother, father and a guy that was a living legend until that tragic day in Paris, just over five years ago, when he was not.

Foley, affectionately known as Axel, played 62 times for Ireland and over 200 times for Munster, as well as winning five All-Ireland-League titles with Shannon, and coaching his home province. He was aged 42 when he died of acute pulmonary oedema, caused by a heart condition, in Paris on the morning his Munster side were set to play Racing 92.

Foley’s death rocked Ireland badly but saw a rugby community rally to Olive, his wife, their couple’s two boys and the wider family.

All her life, Orla Foley recalls looking up to her big brother, and that sense of awe and appreciation has not been dimmed by his passing.

“I was very lucky to get to lots of the big games. I remember me, the poor student, getting along to Bordeaux that scorching weekend when Munster beat Toulouse.

“There was always an unspoken rule in the family – at least one of us would always be there for his games. He’d always look out for us at matches. Dad, he’s so tall that you couldn’t miss him. Mum used to have this mad, four-coloured coat. He’d always ask that she’d wear it so he could easily pick her out.”

Orla got to know Barry when herself and Anthony signed up for a sports management and coaching course at University of Limerick. Barry recalls it as Declan Kidney [Munster coach at the time] nudging several players – including Mossie Lawler, Mike Prendergast and Tony Buckley – towards it so they’d have some sort of interest or training outside of the game. Orla remembers it mostly as good fun.

“It was some craic. It was even better when Rosie [Anthony’s other sister] came in to teach us about water safety. Me and 12 Munster players trying out coaching and saving each other in the pool at U.L!”

Taking part in that course gave Orla an insight into what made her brother so good at what he did.

“He was incredibly calm and focused when it came to sport. He lived and breathed rugby. He was a sponge when it came to learning new sporting skills. He would immediately pick something up like we all had never seen.

“I remember CJ Stander once telling me he often liked to completely switch off from rugby, and avoid it, when he was not playing. That surprised me as I thought all the professionals lived and breathed rugby, because that’s what I was used to at home.

“Anthony and my dad watched rugby all the time. There was always a game on. They’d get up in the middle of the night to watch the Super Rugby. If there was nothing on, he’d fetch a video tape and get that going.”

Barry was in his early 20s, at the time of that U.L course, and time away from the training pitch at Munster brought him even closer to Anthony.

“Anthony was his idol,” Orla says, “and he got to play with him. Not only that, Anthony was like an older brother to him. He looked out for Barry. It was a real family vibe. If Anthony was the older brother, Gaillimh and Claw [Mick Galwey and Peter Clohessy] were like the geriatric grandfathers!”

As a student, and schools rugby player, at St Munchin’s, Barry Murphy knew all about Anthony Foley as he grew up.

“He was the last Junior Cup captain to win it, so he was revered in the school,” says Barry. “Everyone followed his journey. When we won the cup [in 1998], he came in and presented it to us.

“People talk about him like he just had this natural ability, but Axel wasn’t a fluke. He has four AIL wins in a row with Shannon – and was a huge part of that – before going on to win those European Cups with Munster. You’ll never see it again.”

The seismic nature of those Munster victories in Europe have only gained in significance as the years have progressed. Munster were building and building to those Heineken Cup triumphs. They went close and closer still. Hearts were broken, then the pieces were picked up and taped back together.

When they won, at the Millennium Stadium, in 2006 and 2008, there was a sense that Munster were finally where they belonged. They have yet to scale those heights again.

Foley’s success as part of that Munster playing squad helped create the rod for his own back when he stepped up from Munster forwards coach to succeed Rob Penney in 2014.

A new generation – players like Conor Murray, Peter O’Mahony and Simon Zebo – had emerged, but so much of that old Munster D.N.A had finished up. In the space of a few years, guys like Ronan O’Gara, Marcus Horan, Denis Leamy, John Hayes and David Wallace were all hanging up their boots.

“From 1998,” Orla says, “Munster started off by picking up some wins in these dark, dirty matches. They dogged it out and kept ploughing on towards their goal, getting that bit better and better. 2006 was the Holy Grail but 2008 was… we expected to get there. Anything below that was now a huge failure. As [former Munster team manager] Niall O’Donovan once said, ‘We’ve created a bear. Now we must feed it’.”

Anthony Foley’s two years as Munster head coach brought one trip to a league final [they were beaten by Glasgow Warriors] but tougher times in Europe. They needed a home win against Scarlets in May 2016 to avoid the unthinkable – not qualifying for the European Cup.

During that period, when the expert opinions were flying and Munster were faltering, Orla still recalls a man that would take the time out to visit a player in the squad that was not getting game-time.

“I was recognising that at the time,” she says, “in those final few years of just how generous he was. Thinking, ‘God, he’s turned into such a beautiful man’. He was always there for his sons, of course, but would make time for his nephews and get along to support them too.

“There was a time when Munster were up against it and I was only listening to something on the radio about them. There’s a knock at the door, and he’s dropping off food for the dogs. All that pressure he was under, and there he is dropping me in dog food he’d thought to pick some up on the way back from Limerick.”

Anthony Foley’s untimely death is sad enough, but the fact that he was truly enjoying his life, and job before that October 16th 2006 day kicks that bit harder. Those that know him remark how he had been reinvigorated by Rassie Erasmus coming in as Director of Rugby, leaving him to concentrate on coaching and personal player development.

Barry was still catching up with Anthony regularly enough, around then, whether it was for a coffee, a quick chat or a game of football. Typical of ‘Axel’, he had invited Barry along to play football with some old Munster heads when was dealing with injuries and then had to retire from the game early. It was his way of keeping him within that circle.

“We played soccer every Monday night,” he recalls. “He still fancied himself as an Eric Cantona, but I never once did see a back-heel flick come off!”

Orla describes the first 24 hours after learning of her brother’s death as ‘this bad dream’ while Barry, to this day, still can square it off. He may never.

“I was using some homeopathic therapies for that week,” says Orla. “It helped a great deal, and meant I was very present, very aware of what was going on, and truly grateful for all the tributes and kind words.

“It was such a big ask for those players to play [against Glasgow in the European Cup] that Saturday. I couldn’t believe they had the strength of character and resilience to do it, and that they played so well. It was such a beautiful few hours during such a sad time.

“I’ve often thought that, if there was one place I’d love to be – if I was given the choice – it would be Ireland in the winter, when the sun in shining. That week made me realise, the people of Ireland are the sunshine. They gave Anthony the most amazing tribute, and send-off, that week.”

Just four weeks after Anthony had died, Ireland’s players lined up to face New Zealand at Soldier Field in Chicago.

Word got back to the Foley family that there would be some sort of tribute to Anthony – an acknowledgement to all he had done for Irish rugby – before the game. No-one was expecting that evocative ‘Figure 8’ formation the Irish players faced The Haka with, as the Munster players stood at the front.

It was paying respect to the foes they were about to do battle with, while paying tribute to a fallen brother. “You could feel it,” CJ Stander would later recall. “He was there. He was there, 100%… I knew Axel was pushing me along in that game, for sure.”

Back in Killaloe, the impact was immense.

“I watched that game with mum and dad, and it was very special. It was still so raw. We were still in the early stages of grieving.

“It is a moment that I’ll take with me to my grave.

“It is sad to lose someone you love, but you still have to live. No-one gets out of this life alive. You have to remember that, and keep going.”

8 for Anthony Foley.
Pure class. #haka pic.twitter.com/kjRf6JzQEi

— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) November 5, 2016

To the song, then, and how ‘Alone You Stand’ came to be.

“I love this song so much,” says Orla. “The vulnerability and bravery that Barry had in putting it together, it’s a masterpiece. I listened to it five times straight when he first sent it to me. It was like I was reading his diary.”

Barry formed the band Hermitage Green during one of his periods out injured at Munster. When he retired from the game, he launched into the band with his brother and his band-mates and they have played gigs the world over.

Orla always remembered how Barry had penned a poignant song in memory of Munster strength and conditioning coach Paul Darbyshire, who died from Motor Neurone Disease in 2011. Not long after Anthony passed away, she asked Barry if he could do something for her brother. “Every time I’d see him, I’d ask how the song was coming.”

Barry played an early version of the song on Potholes & Penguins, the podcast he presents with former Ireland star Andrew Trimble, for the fourth anniversary of Anthony’s passing. Orla liked the song so much that she taught it to herself on piano, guitar and ukulele, but Barry was not finished refining it.

“I was trying to write it for everyone else for so long,” says Barry. “Then I started to write it from my perspective and what he meant to me.”

The song was completed and Orla had the idea that it could be used to help money for three charities – Mid-Western Cancer Foundation, CARI and CRY – that the Foley family all support. “Orla,” Barry marvels, “she’s so incredible. She’s got such strength and leadership.”

Still, he wanted to make sure Olive and Anthony’s sons Dan and Tony were okay with the idea of this song being put out there to raise money for charity.

“I spoke to Olive last week,” he says. “You assume they are getting on their lives and they may not want any old memories brought up.

“But Olive says she and the boys get so excited whenever they hear him mentioned or see something on about him.

“I spoke to the charities then, too, and it copper-fastened what something like this means to them.”

Orla echoes those sentiments. In the months that passed after Anthony’s death, and from talking to people at fundraisers and events, it became clear how one tragedy had raised awareness of heart conditions and screenings.

“I have a friend,” she comments, “who is now on heart medication after he went for a screening, not long after Anthony passed away. I spoke with a doctor, too, that told me that 250 men that would have developed serious conditions or died, within a year, had been saved because they went for screenings after Anthony’s story was out there.

“I take great solace that others won’t know the pain that we know.”

On Saturday, at half-time in Ireland’s Test encounter with the All Blacks, Barry Murphy’s song ‘Alone You Stand’ will be launched. It will play out to 50,000 rugby fans at a venue that Foley graced many times over his playing career.

The song is available to download at listen to now, though. All proceeds from sales are being donated to the ‘Orla’s Wild Ways’ charity, which in turn will get the money to the Mid-Western Cancer Foundation, children’s charity CARI and CRY, which provides screening and free bereavement counselling for families at risk of Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome (SADS)

‘Alone You Stand’ by Barry Murphy is available to download from https://www.idonate.ie/AloneYouStand.  Donations to ‘Orla’s Wild Ways’ charity can be made at www.idonate.ie/ORLASWILDWAYS.

The FootballJOE quiz: Were you paying attention? – episode 10