According to Munster and Ireland legend and current coach Jerry Flannery, Rassie Erasmus helped Anthony Foley fall back in love with coaching.
It's been a whirlwind couple of months for Munster rugby. Since Anthony Foley's tragic death in October they have only lost one game (away to Leicester in the European Cup) and have emerged as a lot of punters' tip for an outside shot at the Champions Cup title.
The appointment of Rassie Erasmus as Munster's Director of Rugby in the summer was viewed as a much-needed change to help out what was an inexperienced coaching team, with Foley as head coach, who were struggling to achieve success.
Jerry Flannery was (and is) a part of that coaching team, and speaking to Peter O'Reilly of 'The Sunday Times' he said that last season was "a miserable bastard of a year". But he outlined the effect that Erasmus had on Munster and in particular on Foley, who Flannery said was "so broken", particularly after a 27-7 away defeat to Stade Francais in January of 2016:
I reckoned if Rassie is this stereotypical South African, this autocrat, it's going to be torture. But Axel assured me that he was a good guy. They actually got on fantastically.
Rassie's very emotionally intelligent. I could see him getting to know Axel. I'm looking back on it now and I could see the weight lifting off Axel's shoulders. There was a pep back in his step and he was enjoying coaching. Rassie did a fantastic job because Axel could have walked away from the game and he could have died. That would have been an even bigger tragedy.
Axel could have said: 'I don't need this shit', and died having walked away from Munster. But he was back to the Axel everyone knew and maybe that's a silver lining.
Flannery also speaks to O'Reilly about his last evening spent with Foley, how no-one at Munster can bear to enter Foley's office still, and looks forward to next Saturday when Munster face a huge mental and physical challenge: playing the away match against Racing 92 in Paris that was supposed to be played in October but was called off due to Foley's passing.
Buy 'The Sunday Times' to read the full and fascinating interview.
