Even as Ian Nagle was being singled out for his fine man-of-the-match performance in Munster's win over the Wallabies almost four years ago, the Munster cognoscenti, including Anthony Foley and Mick Galwey, were saying that the province had another young lock who was every bit as talented.
Now, finally, Dave Foley’s time has come.
A week before that game, Foley had turned his ankle playing for UL Bohemians, sidelining him for three months. Although Nagle had the jump on Foley and even played for the Irish Wolfhounds, injuries persistently undid his progress and at the end of last season he decided to take a break from the game at the age of 25.
Meanwhile, it was only then that Foley had established himself as Paul O’Connell’s regular second row partner in red and now an Irish debut next month is on his radar.
At 26, Foley is hardly an overnight sensation, having made his Heineken Cup debut last January in Munster’s penultimate pool match away to Gloucester. That came fully three years after his Pro12 debut.
"I've had to wait a while," Foley admits, attributing it to Munster's strength in the "row", with O'Connell, Donncha O'Callaghan and Donnacha Ryan, as well as Nagle and Billy Holland all competing for places. Foley has also had his injury woes, notably a dislocated shoulder three seasons ago, but he has now been injury-free since last season.
“To be honest with you, two years ago I fell out of love with rugby,” he says in his typically disarming and candid way. “I was 23, there were good players around me, and I couldn’t see any light at the end of the tunnel. I couldn’t see where I was ever going to fit in, and I was on average money.
“That wasn’t the main thing but I was never getting a look in. It was only in the last season I got a bit of love back for the game. I remembered why I really enjoyed the game – and I do. I get an incredible buzz from it and I’m incredibly proud to be a Munster man and to play for Munster. It’s huge for me.”
He also always believed he had the ability.
“I always knew the player I could be and would be, but I just never knew if I would get the chance. The fewer chances I got, the more my head dropped. I just wanted a chance, and luckily I got one.”
European action
Getting game time was key. For better or worse, Munster are invariably judged by their Heineken Cup exploits and to a degree it’s the same for the players. Foley admits he felt more like a Munster player after that Gloucester debut, and today he makes his fifth successive European start for Munster.
“It’s incredibly special and it’s a very different week, weeks like this, compared to the Pro12.”
Last season’s breakthrough game away to Gloucester will live long in his memory. “You always got the sense, even when you were not directly involved, that the intensity rises a few levels, but for me personally I was probably very hard to live with that week, I can tell you. I was a very different person.”
“Like, training is niggly. Even for myself, it gets a bit niggly. I suppose you’re under more stress. It means a huge amount to Munster – it means a huge amount to all the provinces – and it certainly means a huge amount to me. It probably brings the best out of you and I really enjoyed that day.”
Plenty of memories still stand out for him, not least looking out of the team coach to the ground and seeing all the Munster red. “I usually have a little walk around the field before the game starts. I was keeping the head down and the earphones in and I remember looking at the Shed, which is famous for its Gloucester supporters, but it was full of Munster people.
“That was kind of a shock, but a good shock, and I felt very comfortable when I got on the field that day. I really got to express myself and I loved it. I kind of knew last season that I was well able for it, whereas if you had put me in maybe two seasons before, I still kind of doubted myself a little bit.”
Filling out his once slender frame was a factor. Mentally he was ready after three seasons of regular A games, but confesses that he needed to eradicate a tendency to be inaccurate.
The following week Munster beat Edinburgh to reach the quarter-finals, when they thrashed Toulouse by 47-23 in April. It was quite a welcome to Thomond Park for the French side and, in a way, for Foley.
“I knew walking onto the pitch for the warm-up that there was no way we were going to lose that game,” Foley recalls. “That was a special day in Thomond Park.”
They nearly beat Toulon in the semi-finals in Marseilles, and again Foley was not remotely overwhelmed by the opposition or the occasion. “Toulon are world-class. We’re just a bunch of country lads. Probably not a lot of people would have known me and if you put me up against such a star-studded team two years ago, I probably wouldn’t have been ready.”
Family affair
Foley is proud of where he comes from, and the route he took from Clonmel. Around the time he was breaking into the Munster Youths, he vividly recalls sitting with his parents at home and watching that famous double hit by Paul O’Connell and Donnacha O’Callaghan on Sébastien Chabal.
His two uncles – Shane and 'Doc' – had also played rugby. (Doc is also David Foley, as is granddad Dave Foley, so they're known as Dave, Doc and David!) Shane, a hooker, and Doc, a backrower, had played in Rockwell, and while the youngest David Foley was studying in CBS High School, he was introduced to under-age rugby in Clonmel by his uncle Shane. He mixed that with Gaelic football and hurling, as well as rowing, his dad's sport.
Indeed, he gave up rugby for a year when he was 16. “I thought, ‘I don’t know if this is for me’. My dad rowed for Ireland in the Home Internationals and he was always going on about how he never won an Irish Championship, so I decided I’d try to win an Irish Championship. We rowed in the Irish Championship but unfortunately it didn’t work out.”
He also kayaked around Europe that year before his mother, Alice, persuaded him to return to rugby. Some of his athleticism comes from her side of the family, as Alice was a high jumper and runner. He also has a sister, Jessica, and a brother, Daragh, who has returned from St Mary’s to play with Clonmel.
“To be honest, I wouldn’t have been any great shakes,” Foley says candidly. “I would have been incredibly skinny. I was aggressive, that was my stand-out point. At times I wouldn’t have made my club team but when I came back to it at 17 I stepped it up a notch.”
Being picked for the East Munster Youths by Pat Coleman gave him some self-belief. This in turn led to playing for the Munster Youths under Tom Mulcahy, who really believed in Foley. He pushed the young lock into the Irish Youths and the Munster Academy. But for all this, Foley admits that he might still easily have walked away from the game.
He did two sub academy years, two in the full academy and a development contract. He is now in his fourth year as a pro, with his current two-year deal expiring at the end of this season. “I’d love my career to be here until I finish out, however long that may be. This is where I want to play and this is where I want to stay.”
It’s all about days like this, and next Friday when Saracens come to Thomond Park. “This is what Munster is built on really. Some people say it’s a bad thing but we love this competition, and I think at times the competition loves us.”
Ireland’s call
When a player makes a breakthrough for his province,he’s suddenly not that far away from the Irish team. After successive Nations Cup campaigns with Emerging Ireland, Foley has been called into Joe Schmidt’s three Irish camps this season.
“I hope he rates me,” says Foley, for whom the key will be focusing on Munster. “Then the rest will look after itself. If they [Irish caps] happen, that will be a great day for me. But I just want to play well for Munster and see how that goes.”
This entails paying alongside a legend in O’Connell, although Foley can ill-afford to look at it like that. “It’s very difficult but you’ve got to try and play better than him if you want to be taken seriously, because everyone talks about Paul and how great he is, and rightly so.
“I think he’s incredible and I’ve learned a huge amount from him. He’s a step above everybody else and I’m very lucky that he’s been in Munster and I suppose I’ve also been very unlucky in the fact that there’s been so many good second-rows, and that it’s taken up to now to break in.”
Truly better late than never, though.
