Rugby player and coach
Born: October 30, 1973;
Died: October 16, 2016
ANTHONY Foley, who has died suddenly aged 42, was one of the great figures of modern Irish sport: a record-breaking try-scorer in his days with Munster and latterly its head coach. He also played for Ireland 62 times, scoring a try against England on his debut in 1995.
He also led Munster to their first European Cup victory in 2006 after years of heartbreak in top flight competition and within a couple of years he was central to the province's repeat success.
Foley, known as Axel, scored 39 tries for his province and made 86 appearances in European competition before taking on backroom roles from 2009 and being named head coach in 2014.
It was a career that probably seemed like destiny to Foley - his father Brendan was a member of the Munster team that beat the All Blacks in 1978, he was a lock forward who won 11 caps for Ireland and rugby was in the family blood. His sister Rosie played rugby, but it was Anthony who became the best known of the Foley clan after swapping hurling for the oval ball as a child.
Educated at St Munchin's College in Limerick, he played for Shannon his entire career and his progression was swift. Just a few months past his 21st birthday, he made his Ireland debut against England in the 1995 Five Nations Championship
He made a try-scoring start in a 20-8 Lansdowne Road defeat and would be selected for Ireland's World Cup squad in South Africa that summer.
His Munster bow came the following November in the Irish province's first-ever Heineken Cup fixture against Swansea. It was a fitting debut as he became a giant of Munster rugby in an era when they were often among the best in European rugby.
A rugged competitor who epitomised the physical brand of Irish rugby shown by the likes of Paul O'Connell and Peter Clohessy, Foley won the first five of his 62 Ireland caps - three of which came as captain in 2001 and 2002 - as a flanker.
But he was a natural number eight and it was a position he was to hold in the Ireland back row for almost a decade after starting there against Australia in November 1996.
Foley missed the 1999 World Cup and played in the 2003 edition, and his last Ireland appearance came in March 2005.
But he probably became associated with Munster as much as Ireland with the province establishing itself as a real European force. He played in the Munster teams edged out in the 2000 and 2002 Heineken Cup finals by Northampton and Leicester. But Munster finally won the greatest prize in European club rugby when Foley led them to victory over Biarritz in 2006.
He missed out on the province's second Heineken Cup success in 2008, and announced his retirement at the end of that season after collecting a record 201 Munster caps.
But he later took up a coaching role with Munster, serving as a defensive specialist, and also worked with the Ireland Wolfhounds in 2011.
Later that year he was named as successor to Australian Laurie Fisher in the Munster forwards job.
In 2014 he became the first Munster manager of the professional era to hail from Limerick.
Munster were in a rebuilding phase under his command and failed to hit the heights in Europe they had during his own playing days. But the team were PRO12 finalists in his first season in charge in 2014-15, with Glasgow the eventual champions.
Foley was found dead in the province's team hotel in Paris on Sunday, hours before the team were due to take to the pitch in the European Champions Cup. He is survived by his wife Olive and two sons Tony and Dan.
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