Axel factor presents difficult concoction of emotions

Anthony Foley’s aura will be all around Thomond Park tomorrow, says Ronan O’Gara.

I didn’t get to see this week’s television documentary a year on from the dreadful loss of Anthony Foley. There are things you don’t ‘move on from’. One manages to compartmentalise them, but the vagaries of the Champions Cup fixture programme has placed Racing 92 in Limerick on Saturday, the day before Axel’s anniversary Mass in Killaloe. His aura will be all around Thomond Park tomorrow.

For Racing, that’s a good thing. It helps to remind my team of the Axel factor, and that it will be another emotionally-charged crucible tomorrow. In the week that’s in it, Axel is very much to the forefront of every Munster player’s thinking, every supporter too, with the intense focus of delivering a performance in his honour.