Foley: We want to win and move on

ANTHONY FOLEY has been parading his talents at Thomond Park since he was a schoolboy at St Munchin’s. Over the years, he has enjoyed great times there with Munster and Shannon.

Nobody has more regard for the tradition of the place, but the Munster captain is adamant they just can’t turn up tomorrow and expect the ground and its legendary fans to work their magic again.

“Thomond Park in itself hasn’t won matches for us and never will,” acknowledged the 31-year-old veteran of 63 Heineken Cup appearances (a record by eight). “It’s all about making sure the atmosphere is right and intimidating for the opposition. When we get out on the pitch, it gives you that lift, the hairs rise on the back of your neck and it makes you run that bit faster and stronger.

“But you’ve got to go out and produce a performance and give the fans something to cheer. You can’t go out and expect it to happen. We’re going to try and get a good start and get the crowd into the game. I’m sure Castres will be thinking along the same lines and try to keep the crowd quiet.

“We’ve been down this road before but now we’ve got to get the kind of result we got before. That takes an awful lot of hard work and doesn’t just happen. It’s about having the right preparation and the right attitude on the pitch and making sure our work ethic is right up there this week. There has been a bit of bite and a bit of edge at training, but in truth that’s always been there because we have such a competitive squad.

“What happened to us last weekend was very disappointing but at the end of the day, it’s just another game. As I said to the boys on Friday night, the only way that we can compound what happened then was not producing next Saturday. If we can produce, it will kind of mask what happened last Friday. It’s just very important that from that moment on, we focused on Saturday.

“We were very disappointed after Friday night but it looks like we’ve bounced back during training this week. We were disappointed because we never played. We went there with good ideas, good plans, and then went out on the pitch and didn’t produce. Of course you have to give credit to Castres because they didn’t allow us to play and that can become frustrating. Now it’s just a matter of trying to impose our game on them on Saturday.

“We’ll take last week’s bonus point but there’s no consolation in losing because we felt going over that we could get the win and coming up short was a massive disappointment.

“I don’t think we’re necessarily under pressure but if we get anything less than a win this time, it’s going to be very hard to get out of our group.

Foley insists that the controversy surrounding Paul Volley and Ronan O’Gara that blew up during and after last Friday’s game will not play on their minds. He insisted: “We’re just interested in the four points at Thomond Park. We just want to win this game and move on.”