Tipp-top Foley keeping his discipline

IN A manner with which all Munster GAA fans will be most familiar, Tipperary have lately forced their way into rugby’s consciousness in the province, to the extent that one of these days we can expect the clamour to begin for the jersey to be changed from the famous red to blue and gold.

“There’s a nice lot of us alright,” says young Clonmel native Dave Foley, looking down at you from the full height of his 6’6” frame. “There’s Quinny (Alan Quinlan), (Denis) Leamy, Tommy O’Donnell, Donncha Ryan, Denis Fogarty, Eoghan Grace, Paddy Butler and myself with Munster, and you have Trevor Hogan and John Fogarty with Leinster – a good few Tipperary men.”

Don’t just look at the number of players either – look at their positions. Forwards, every last one of those mentioned above, hookers, backrowers and a couple of giants for the second row, of which Dave himself is one. No shrinking violets in their midst, just typical well-fed Tipperary beef, and typical confident Tipperary aggression also.

“Yeah, I suppose we are (aggressive), especially when you look at Quinny and Leamy, two of the most aggressive men you’d ever meet – I don’t know if I’m as aggressive as them but you do need it in rugby. But it seems to be scattered right through the Munster team, you have that chip on your shoulder – you know there are a lot of people in Irish rugby who would like to see us fall.”

Slagging aside, they’re a seriously talented bunch, all those Tipperary lads, and Foley himself is no exception. Though still only a kid in second-row terms (he turns 22 on May 16), Dave has already tasted big-time Magners League action, and got 30 minutes as a substitute in the recent rousing win over Connacht in Galway. Dedication, he says, is the key, as well as sacrifice, and a single-minded pursuit of excellence.

“You need so much self-discipline in this game. I’m trying to put on weight – I’m 103 kilos now, just under 16.5 stone, but realistically, I need at least another stone for second row. And yet I have to be careful what I eat – it has to be the right kind of weight, that’s the important thing. I see my friends heading out on the piss, but I can’t go; if you have training the next day – and most days you have – that’s no good. It was difficult at the start, you’d have been tempted, but now they (friends) don’t even bother to ask anymore, it’s simply not an option for me.

“That’s the hardest thing when you’re this age, watching your mates going off enjoying themselves. They’re all heading off now for the summer for three months – I can’t do that. I’ll be in here, on the weights programme. You get to go out every now and again, we don’t lock ourselves away completely, but going away for three months – that’s different. You’d be getting texts off them and stuff, rubbing it in. I’m going away for three weeks alright, to California, but I’ll have to find a gym over there, do a bit of running as well – you don’t want to come back to pre-season in bad condition, the first few weeks are toughest. And I don’t want to get injured again – I lost a lot of time at the start of last year with osteitis pubis, a pelvic injury, I don’t want that to happen again.”

It’s a tough regime, especially for a young guy in modern Ireland, but that’s the price demanded of the modern aspiring rugby professional in Munster, and it’s a price Foley is more than willing to pay.

“People see all the glitz and glamour that’s there with the guys at the top, but I haven’t much of a taste of that yet.

“There’s a huge amount of work that goes on behind the scenes, the sheer bulk of training that has to be done, to build yourself up to be ready for that level of competition.

“But it’s good to be doing something you like, and worth it to play in that red jersey.”