Tyler Bleyendaal awards MVP gong to grieving family of Anthony Foley

It was a treasured Thomond Park afternoon, and a treasured man-of-the-match award for Munster out-half Tyler Bleyendaal.

The New Zealander has been beset by injury problems but produced the form Anthony Foley regularly championed on the day the province said farewell to one of its favourite sons with a 38-17 Champions Cup defeat of Glasgow.

If anyone thought his Most Valuable Player gong would have pride of place on Bleyendaal’s mantelpiece, they don’t know how Munster works

On Sunday morning, the New Zealander travelled out to Killaloe to present the grieving Foley family with his award, the first of his Munster career.

His gesture to Olive Foley and her sons underscored the pledge the players made to Foley’s family after last week’s tragic passing of the 42-year-old - we are your extended family and we will always be there for you.

Meanwhile, former Springbok Marnus Boshoff may have finally arrived at the Sportsground but Jack Carty sent out a timely reminder he will have a battle for the out-half position with a man of the match display in Connacht’s record 52-7 Champions Cup win over Zebre.

Boshoff, capped once by South Africa against Scotland, is expected to fill the gap left by the departure of AJ MacGinty to Sale Sharks.

But Carty produced a stunning display in Parma on Sunday and had a hand in several of their eight tries, including two precision kicks which helped Stacey Ili touch down twice on his way to a hat-trick in his first start. Now Connacht have a great chance of reaching the Champions Cup quarter-finals for the first time in four attempts when they take on Wasps in the December double fixtures.

“We’re sitting nicely at the top of the table with nine points. If you take the two games as a whole I suppose we might be a bit disappointed that we didn’t come away with four tries last week,” said Carty.

“When they went down 14 men, it could have seen a change of mindset but we stuck to our process and did quite well.”