I see photos of Axel now and I can’t believe it, just can’t understand
O’connell leads tributes to tragic rugby hero
FAMILY and friends have spoken of the joy rugby legend Anthony “Axel” Foley brought to their lives a year after his tragic death.
Former Ireland and Munster captain Paul O’connell still breaks down in tears when he speaks of his late teammate.
The 37-year-old said: “I see photos of him now and I still can’t believe it.
“I can’t believe it, can’t understand it, can’t get my head around it.”
Recalling the days immediately after Axel’s sudden death in a Paris hotel on October 16 last year, the Munster legend welled up as he told of how past and present players comforted each other.
Weeping, he added: “As long as we were with each other it was all right – but if you were on your own at all it wasn’t a good week.” The Limerick man was speaking on a new RTE documentary, Anthony Foley: Munsterman, to mark the first anniversary of the death of the province’s coach and former captain.
And family and friends reveal how the shocking news was broken to them.
Axel’s youngest sister Orla said: “I was out with my mum and my sister and we were having breakfast, altogether with my nieces and nephews.”
Elder sibling Rosie, herself a former Irish international rugby player, rang her husband Pat to come and join them in a cafe in their hometown of Killaloe, Co Clare.
She added: “Next thing Pat rang again and said you have to meet me. I said, ‘Pat, what’s wrong?’ I knew by the tone of his voice something was not right. He pulled in and I could see by his face [something was wrong] and he said, ‘Anthony did not wake up, he just did not wake up. Your father is after ringing and saying he did not wake up’. “How do you process that? I replied, ‘What do you mean Anthony didn’t wake up? Anthony’s 42, what do you mean he didn’t wake up?’” Orla said she collapsed at the news: “I went down wailing like a banshee and they had to crumple me into the front of the car.” She added Rosie “kept it together” and went back and got their mum and Axel’s two young sons, Tony and Dan, who were with them in the cafe. Rosie said: “I was afraid because they have a TV in the corner of the cafe that something may flash up.
“My priority was to get my mother home so that I could tell her. That was difficult.”
Orla said she will remember to her dying day being with Axel’s wife Olive as the broken-hearted widow told her two boys their daddy was gone.
She added: “It was just pure devastation and loss.”
Axel’s father Brendan, himself a former Ireland international, was in Paris for Munster’s game with Racing 92 when he was given the shocking news.
His son had failed to turn up for a training session and was not answering his mobile or hotel room phone.
Eventually a porter let Munster staff into the room where they found him dead. Word soon spread through the squad and coaching staff. Forwards
coach and former Munster player Jerry Flannery said: “I kept thinking this is a mistake. I was having a laugh with this guy a few hours ago. Is this really f ****** happening?
“I remember having to go through old Munster teams and having to ring up these lads, John Hayes, Paul O’connell, Alan Quinlan.”
Munster team manager Niall O’donovan added: “The one thing that crossed my mind was Olive, the kids, Brendan and Sheila, the family.
“I didn’t want anyone close to him finding out on Facebook or Twitter or something like that.”
He heard Brendan was on the way to the hotel and he broke the heartbreaking news to him.
O’donovan said: “Telling Brendan was something I never want to do again. There were people breaking down all over the place.” Fly-half Ronan O’gara added: “I got a phone call from Garret Fitzgerald, the chief executive of Munster. He broke down, I broke down, and that was it.
“When I was in the Munster hotel they removed what I know now was Axel from the hotel. Unfortunately that image can’t get out of my head.” The coffin was brought home past Thomond Park in Limerick, the scene of many of Axel’s greatest triumphs.
His sister Rosie said: “It seemed fitting and right for us to come back by Thomond Park. Noel Healy, president of Shannon, absolutely a huge friend of Anthony’s always, sang There Is An Isle as we were there with the coffin. Amazing stuff.”
Some 20,000 people turned up in Killaloe for the funeral to hear Olive promise to bring up her two adored boys to be “decent, solid men full of integrity and honesty like their dad”.
She added: “Some of the biggest heroes in the country were crying openly on air, on TV and in church, hugging each other.”
The documentary shows how Axel’s death – from a heart disorder which led to a fatal lung condition – spurred Munster to victory against Glasgow in their next match and Ireland to defeat the All Blacks for the first time in their history a few weeks later. Anthony Foley: Munsterman airs on RTE One on Monday at 9.35pm.