IRELAND’s rugby team remembered the late Anthony ‘Axel’ Foley prior to their loss to New Zealand in the Rugby World Cup.
As New Zealand were about to perform the Haka in the Stade de France, Ireland’s players formed a figure of eight in memory of Killaloe native Foley, the number worn by Anthony when he earned 62 Irish caps in his international career.
Conor Murray was among the Irish players at the front of the figure of eight, he lined out for Munster during Foley’s two years as Head Coach, up until his sudden death in October 2016.
When Ireland recorded their first ever win over the All Blacks at Soldiers Field in Chicago in November 2016, the same figure of eight was adopted by the men in green.
Ahead of winning his 100th cap for his country before Ireland’s final group game against Scotland, Peter O’Mahony paid tribute to his former mentor, Foley. He admitted that being in the French capital brought back memories of Axel. “Axel is always somebody who is certainly in my head on a very regular basis and when you come to Paris he certainly comes to mind. I’ve the fondest memories that we had together and the amount of inspiration he gave, not to just to me, but to lots of young kids in Munster and Ireland”.
O’Mahony became only the tenth Irish man to win 100 joining John Hayes, Brian O’Driscoll, Ronan O’Gara, Paul O’Connell and Rory Best along with current internationals Cian Healy, Johnny Sexton, Conor Murray and Keith Earls.
