End of an era as the 'top flight' move on

When the curtain comes down on another Munster season on Saturday May 24 at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, it will mark the end of a great chapter in the Munster rugby story.

Old Crescent U-12 team winners of the Malone (Belfast) International Festival of Rugby 2008 (involving teams from England, Scotland and Wales as well as some northern teams and some others from the south) and the Team Tours Irish Festival of Rugby 2008 iin Midleton, Co Cork, pictured at a Mayoral Reception at City Hall with the Mayor of Limerick Cllr Ger Fahy. Picture: Kieran Clancy/PicSure

It will be all change at the top for next season with Declan Kidney taking over the Ireland coaching job, Jim Williams going back to Australia to become assistant coach of his national team, and former Munster captain Anthony Foley hanging up his boots.

Two other great Munster stalwarts John Kelly and Anthony Horgan have also stepped down from the squad.

Anthony Foley got a standing ovation when he ran off the Musgrave Park pitch for the last time last Saturday evening.

I know he would have wished to have played his last match in his beloved Thomond Park, but perhaps Axel will make an appearance there when Munster play the All Blacks.

I spoke to Anthony last weekend and he was philosophical about his retirement.

"Time marches on," he said. "You need to get on with your own life and, as John Kelly told me, when you're out of the circle, you're out. I know it will be hard to adjust, but it has happened before with Peter (Clohessy) and Mick (Galwey) stepping down, and Killian Keane and Dominic Crotty also moving on. It is all part and parcel of the game."

He added: "I know it will be a big change and I hope I'm prepared for it," he added.

I asked Anthony had he any desire to go into coaching but he said he would prefer not to dwell on that at present.

"There are one or two things floating around at the moment," he continued, "but I would prefer not to talk about that at the present time."

The Number Eight looked back on his early amateur days with Munster.

"We had no structure back then," he said. "We would train only two nights a week and the AIL clubs were the most important thing at the time.

"We played very little with the Munster side, just the interprovincial games. In my first year with the team we only played about five or six matches but now we are playing up to 30 a season. It's all changed since the game went professional and our whole attitude has changed as well.

He continued: "Munster rugby has become a big business with massive support and sponsorship." This all happened so quickly around the 1999-2000 season.

As Anthony recalls: "That season, we played Leinster in Dooradoyle and there were less than 1,000 people there. Suddenly, we were bringing six to eight thousand down to Bordeaux in the same season. It was a dramatic change but we opened people's imaginations as to what we could do in Europe. and they bought into that and followed us on our journey."

Axel has played a record 202 times for Munster, 86 in the Heineken Cup, and the highlight of his career was lifting the Heineken Cup aloft in the Millennium Stadium in 2006.