Reds veteran Foley glad to soldier on

HE HASN’T gone away you know. He’s 34, has already won a record 83 caps for Munster in the Heineken Cup (also a tournament record), but yesterday in Limerick, when coach Declan Kidney named a squad of 26 for Sunday’s crucial away group game against Clermont, there he was again — Anthony Foley.

On the back of recent form, the home and away wins over Llanelli especially, wins that took Munster to the top of the table in this intensely-competitive pool, expect Foley to make the final 22 on Friday, and then, expect him to make the starting 15.

For a while there it looked like he was gone. Out of the equation with Ireland for some time, Foley had also lost his Munster Heineken Cup place at number eight to Denis Leamy, a force of nature who looked destined for a long career at the back of the scrum. Just when the career obits were being prepared for Foley, however, a break: injury to the in-form blindside Alan Quinlan before the Llanelli games meant a return to that position for Leamy, and into the fray came the man from Killaloe.