Anthony Foley showed a lot of faith in the 26-year-old when his career was hanging in the balance, two years ago.
Facing surgery on a serious neck injury, and at least nine months of pain-staking rehab, there was talk of Munster Rugby ending his contract early.
Foley, two months into his job as head coach, was having none of it. Bleyendaal was a player, not ‘a piece of meat’, he declared. More importantly, he was a Munster player and the province looked after their own.
His career was hanging by a thread https://t.co/1ag6Ugod5Q
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) October 24, 2016
As we noted on Monday, Bleyendaal went out and repaid the faith his late coach had in him with a man of the match display in Saturday’s emotional Champions Cup victory over Glasgow Warriors.
Bleyendaal dedicated the win to follow, in a post-match chat with Sky Sports, but went one step further the next day.
The New Zealander travelled to Foley’s hometown of Killaloe the next day and presented that cut-glass award to Foley’s family.
It’s gestures like that that show how strong the rugby family can be at tragic times like this.
Colm Parkinson chats to Kerry GAA legend, and author, Kieran Donaghy in a special edition of The GAA Hour. Listen below or subscribe on iTunes
