Rassie Erasmus: ‘Beating All Blacks the perfect way to honour Axel’

Munster Director of Rugby Rassie Erasmus yesterday paid tribute to Joe Schmidt’s Ireland following their sensational victory over the All Blacks in Chicago on Saturday night.

And Erasmus admitted that the result was the perfect way to honour the memory of Anthony Foley who was remembered by the players, who stood in the shape of the figure eight, when facing the Haka.

“I know how much time Joe had with the team and it wasn’t a lot”, he said. “To get them to perform like that against a New Zealand team fresh out of a Rugby Championship was a proper performance, a proper result. The 8 for Axel was beautiful, wonderful.

“Maybe it helped in the way they performed. If it did, that’s great.

“To start a game like that and honour him like that ... we’ve done it in Munster jerseys, the other provinces have done it, for the national team to do it like that is just amazing”.

Erasmus, of course, hasn’t been taking his eye off Munster’s needs and yesterday revealed that Dublin native Angus Lloyd, currently with Ulster and who played a match for Munster A last season, and New Zealander Te Aihe Toma, who has made three appearances for the Highlanders in the Super Championship, have arrived as short-term signings to plug a gap in the scrum-half position.

South African prop Thomas du Toit also joined the group yesterday as another temporary signing although Erasmus warmly greeted the return this week from suspension of James Cronin and the emergence of two other home bred players, Brian Scott and Peter McCabe.

Erasmus also spoke warmly of how well he is settling down in Munster.

“Every week in Ireland, I experience something different”, he says. “You go to Kingspan and Ulster and play there, that was new, and then two weeks ago seeing a full Thomond Park and this week seeing a full stadium in Cork, every week something new, now facing the Maoris at home.

“The players also see it like that. It is going to be a hell of a challenge.”

For the third successive week, Munster will play in front of a full house when they take on the Maori All Blacks at Thomond Park on Friday. The European Champions Cup game against Glasgow Warriors also attracted 26, 500 spectators while Musgrave Park was sold out for last week’s Guinness Pro 12 clash with the Ospreys.