‘Elation’ and ‘achievement’ still fresh 12 years on for Foley

Not that it would happen, but if Anthony Foley were to face a “show us your medals” moment in his first week as Ireland’s stand-in forwards coach, he would be one of a select few to have savoured a Six Nations win in Paris.

Foley was Ireland’s No.8 at Stade de France the day the hosts were beaten 27-25, and of the crop preparing this week to repeat that feat of March 19, 2000, only Ronan O’Gara is around to have shared the moment with him.

Now the Munster forwards coach, who has taken the reins of the Irish pack in the absence of Gert Smal for the rest of this year’s Six Nations championship, is eager to help his new charges savour a similar experience this Sunday afternoon at Stade de France.

“I remember the feeling,” Foley recalled yesterday following his first training session with the Ireland forwards at Carton House. “I remember the elation around the squad, the feeling of a job well done, the feeling of achievement. You get hit with it every time you go over there about the record over there and it was nice to be in a side that won over there. It is something that stays with you but you have to move on and try and do it again.”

For Foley, there are definitely lessons to be learned from that famous day a dozen years ago.

“I think when you go back to it we were under the cosh for long periods of the game and... sometimes you find yourself 15 points down after 20 minutes.

“Fortunately enough, they butchered a couple of opportunities that day and we hung on in there and got a couple of scores before half-time and suddenly found ourselves very close to them in the second half.

“I think Paddy (Johns) got sin-binned in the second half, we had to hang on to a five-metre scrum and I think Denis Hickie pulled down (hooker Marc) Del Maso five metres from the line. At times you’re hanging on in there but then Brian (O’Driscoll) picked up two passes, in under the posts, and (David Humphreys) Humphs kicked a lovely penalty and suddenly we end up winning.

“A lot of it comes down to the ability to hang on, stay close and make sure when your opportunities come you’re there to take them.”

Foley is certainly still taking his opportunities if events of the last week are anything to go by. Having been made a front runner to succeed outgoing Munster director of coaching Tony McGahan at the end of the season, the 2006 Heineken Cup-winning captain then received the call from old boss Declan Kidney to cover for Smal when an eye condition forced the South African to depart the Irish camp.

“The call came out of the blue,” Foley said. “You don’t sit back and wait, grasp it and hold onto it and see where it takes you.”

With Smal having already laid the foundations for Ireland’s forwards’ approach in the original fixture against France, Foley is acutely aware not to be treading on toes but that will not stop him making his voice heard.

“I was involved today. You do have to respect that the team has come from a World Cup, Christmas camps, pre-championship camps, prepared for two games, so there’s a lot of work already been done there. It’s my role to fill in with the boys and make sure that I row in with them as well. If I see something that I think can be done a bit differently, little subtleties, I’m not afraid to say [it]. But in terms of the volume of work that this side, this forward pack, has done over this season so far, you just really get in behind it and if I can give my influence I will.”

Foley had a watching brief last Saturday at the Aviva Stadium as Ireland clocked up a 42-10 win over Italy but said he had spotted “just one or two things I’d do a little bit differently” from the Irish forwards’ performance.

He also said the current discussion surrounding Ireland’s back row and a perceived lack of intensity was easily explained and would improve with another game in the books.

“I think for this campaign it’s been stop-start for the boys,” Foley said. “Every time you go into your first Six Nations game you always talk about momentum and that called-off game has taken the momentum away. We’d to come back and get ready for Italy, the boys did well, second-half excellent, and now you look to build that momentum onto it.

“I’m sure we’ll be sharper in those areas and I think that will happen as a flow of playing games.”