I was cheated, says peeved Keith Earls

Only six weeks on from Anthony Foley’s death, emotions are still raw for Keith Earls, not just at the loss of his head coach but also the red card he received in the match that followed.

Earls, recalled by Ireland for tomorrow’s Test against Australia, had missed the historic victory against New Zealand in Chicago due to suspension.

The two-week ban followed his dismissal for a what was deemed a dangerous tip tackle on Glasgow’s Fraser Brown on that emotionally charged Champions Cup day at Thomond Park when Munster came together to honour Foley a week on from his sudden death in Paris.

Already trying to process the grief of the head coach’s passing, Earls then had to deal with what he felt was the injustice of his dismissal, though he explained yesterday his intemperate reaction that followed the red card was all he felt obliged to apologise for.

“There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of him and think about his family and his kids,” Earls said yesterday at Ireland’s training base in Kildare.

“Yeah, it was tough. It was a massive game (against Glasgow), it meant a lot to us. It was a tough week in general from burying your head coach and then an hour later doing a captain’s run. It’s just not right. “I suppose the only thing I do apologise for - I don’t apologise for anything else - is kicking the bottles on the side of the pitch. I wouldn’t like to see a young lad doing that at underage or some young lad at Thomond Park.

“I suppose I’ve been waiting to be interviewed to apologise for that. I don’t apologise for the rest of it. I spoke to Fraser Brown on the phone and I felt he could have done a bit more, yes, I did lift his leg but I felt he could have done a bit more to save the impact, the way he went, I thought he was going for it a small bit to be honest with you. I spoke to him and he said he was just trying to protect himself.

“I felt I was cheated really going off the pitch, they denied me an opportunity to put in a performance for my head coach and the Munster supporters so I kind of lost it a bit coming off the pitch.”

It had been an easy assumption to make that the Ireland wing had let his emotions get the better of him but Earls rejected that theory.

“No, I was relaxed. I was really looking forward to it. I suppose we hadn’t been taking our chances. Looking at the start of the season, we’d been creating so many chances and we didn’t take them.

“We were relaxed. The week was crazy but for a lot of us it put things in perspective. Down in Munster it has been a tough two years.

“Axel went through a rough two years and we kind of said ‘he’s not here, his wife and kids are at home, their life has been turned upside down’ and we got worried about a lot of rugby matches, it’s stupid really, we just need to go out relax, perform and take the chances we were creating’ and that’s what we did against Glasgow and ever since.

“It’s a pity it’s after taking for our head coach to die for us to play the way he wanted us to play. That’s the way it is.” In truth, Earls and his provincial team-mates had been building up to that European performance and the ones that followed, against Ulster, Ospreys and a stunning win over the Maori All Blacks, before Foley’s death, the head coach better positioned to get his points across having been freed to do more coaching following the arrival of Rassie Erasmus as director of rugby.

“I think Axel was very comfortable in his role. He didn’t have to deal with the man management point of view, the province as a whole or dealing with media. He just got to coach.

“You’d say something if it was two years ago when he dies, you would have been like ‘yeah, jeez he’s stressed. The stress of the job has done it to him.’ “But he was actually really happy. He was getting messages across clear. Himself and Rassie were really starting to click. We would have been heading in the right direction anyway but it’s a different situation now the way it’s after going.”

For Earls, Foley’s death and the heartfelt reaction to it has revived the sense of togetherness within Munster and indeed Irish rugby. It has also allowed him and his colleagues to enjoy the wins at little more than he did before.

“I never enjoyed the highs, which is weird because I thought rugby was everything. It (was) straight on to the next week and next game. I mean the lows are a million times worse than the highs.

“I suppose that is something Rassie has brought in now with Munster.

“If we win a game, we’ll all have one drink with each other in the dressing room to celebrate the victory and enjoy the win - to enjoy the moment - and we’ll move on on the Monday.

There’s no speaking (about what’s next) in the dressing room straight on afterwards and not enjoying it.

“Enjoying the wins is the main thing.”