TILL STAND
he nearly died from meningitis.”
There would be so much that could be celebrated, the experiences, the memories, the people, the places on her brother’s carousel.
“Yes Anthony is gone now but he enriched our lives, there is a legacy there with stories still coming out of kind deeds of what he meant to people, how they remembered him.
“I’d heard tales of how he pushed a broken down car up and over a bridge to how he would call in to see sick kids in hospital.
“There was one where he mistakenly sat on the wrong side of the bed where the kid was in serious difficulties trying to turn and talk to him.
“But acting out a rugby story with a pretend ball he subtly managed to move around to the other side without embarrassing the youngster.
“It is hard to tell how many players past and present came around following his death to tell us about how when they were injured or down he went that extra mile to find them or bring them under his wing.
“I think everyone knows the story of how when Ian Keatley was at a low ebb he was invited around to his family BBQ.”
For his part, Murphy believes the dressing room presence will go on for a long, long time, that there was a peculiarity in Foley’s friendship that struck a chord.
“He wasn’t the person who was your friend to be seen to be your friend, the big pat-on-the-back in front of people-type.
Sense
(right)
“He had a sense of a someone needing a helping or a kind word, someone who might be on the verge of losing it a bit and that applied from the top pros down to the Academy kids.
“In a bigger way he fretted about Munster all the time — I know, for instance, it was a huge thing in his mind that there were two bases, Limerick and Cork.
“He wanted the bond to be better, stronger, tighter. I’d go as far as to say he worried about that too much, that was how ‘Red’ he was.”
Axel Foley’s ‘ other’ favourite team wore red as well — Manchester United — as did, for the most part, his boyhood hero.
“You know, Anthony’s hero growing up was the comic book Roy of the Rovers,” relates Orla of the Melchester Rovers megastar.
“And just like him he got to play and he got to win and play for his country and he got to be a coach.
“Life is tough but he got his dream job and lived that dream in that tough life — he got to be Roy of the Rovers.”
There may be — or there may not be, let’s hope there is — a spontaneous minute’s applause eight minutes into this evening’s game against Connacht at Thomond Park.
Let’s hope there is, art for art’s sake, sport for sport’s sake, humanity for God’s sake.
As Murphy’s heartfelt, beautiful, lament keens:
“It’s important to say
And I’ll say it to you now
It’s important to say
Alone you stand…”
Mike Haley; Andrew Conway, Keith Earls, Rory Scannell, Simon Zebo; Joey Carbery, Craig Casey; Dave Kilcoyne, Niall Scannell, John Ryan; Jean Kleyn, Tadhg Beirne; Peter O’Mahony (CAPT), Chris Cloete, Gavin Coombes.
Subs: Diarmuid Barron, Jeremy Loughman, Stephen Archer, Fineen Wycherley, Jack O’Donoghue, Neil Cronin, Jake Flannery, Dan Goggin.
MUNSTER: CONNACHT:
Tiernan O’Halloran, John Porch, Sammy Arnold, Bundee Aki, Mack Hansen, Jack Carty (CAPT), Caolin Blade; Matthew Burke, Dave Heffernan, Finlay Bealham, Niall Murray, Ultan Dillane, Cian Prendergast, Conor Oliver, Paul Boyle.
Subs: Shane Delahunt, Greg McGrath, Jack Aungier, Eoghan Masterson, Abraham Papali’i, Kieran Marmion, Jarrad Butler, Tom Daly.
Referee: Chris Busby