This was tragically tough for Peter O’Mahony but he got through it and paid his respects to Anthony Foley.
There was a sense of the unreal about Munster’s press briefing at University of Limerick this afternoon.
Anthony Foley, the former Munster head coach, will be laid to rest on Friday in Killaloe at a small service for his family and close friends.
Meanwhile, Munster Rugby are honouring their Champions Cup fixture commitment with Glasgow Warriors. Their game will go ahead on Saturday, there will be a guard of honour for ‘Axel’ and a devastated squad will try to put emotions to one side to win this one for a man that meant so much to them.
Munster director of rugby, Rassie Erasmus read out a statement on behalf of everyone at the province to ‘a coach, a brother, a friend’.
The first question posed to O’Mahony saw the captain try and fail to respond. Asked how tough it would be to focus on Glasgow, O’Mahony began, “I suppose…” before breaking down.
As tough as they come on the field, O’Mahony seemed to admonish himself for faltering with it was his turn to speak.
No-one – not a single person in the room – could blame him. Foley was O’Mahony’s hero growing up. He thought him so much about rugby, life and comradeship.
“I’m not going to do him justice here,” he bitterly lamented.
Once he had composed himself, O’Mahony was able to share a couple of nice stories that encapsulated the man Foley was. He said:
“My first game that he coached me at Munster was an U-20 game at Thomond Park, we won it 3-0 and that suited Axel as good as if we’d won it by 60 or 70. He wanted to win for Munster at any cost.
“Personally,” O’Mahony added, “he meant a huge amount. He’s been there, I haven’t supported a Munster team that he wasn’t involved in. The amount he’s given the club, it can’t be calculated… The amount we’ve lost now that he’s gone, the rugby knowledge; the man, the coach and the friend, it’s huge.”
Munster have confirmed that 17,000 tickets have, so far, been sold for Saturday’s game.
Now that it has been confirmed as going ahead, it will definitely be a sell-out occasion, and farewell for a Munster legend.
