Munster on Saturday paid a scintillating tribute to former coach Anthony Foley by routing Racing 92 32-7 to edge closer to the European Rugby Champions Cup quarter-finals.
Foley, 42, died in a Paris hotel in October last year before the two sides were to play the original fixture.
The game was called off as a mark of respect and rearranged for Saturday, with 2006 and 2008 champions Munster sweeping to victory against a woeful Racing, who have now lost all four matches in the tournament.
Photo: AFP
Munster ran in four tries for a bonus-point win, which propelled them to the top of Pool 1, three points ahead of Glasgow.
Simon Zebo, C.J. Stander (two) and Andrew Conway scored Munster’s tries.
Racing, who were runners-up to Saracens in last season’s final, had to wait until the 64th minute to get on the scoreboard, when Mathieu Voisin grabbed the French team’s only try.
All Blacks star Dan Carter, who started the match on the bench, kicked the extras, but the big-spending Paris outfit remain rooted to the foot of the table without a point to their name.
“It’s a great feeling for me and the team to honor ‘the big man’ with a win,” said Munster’s South African backrow forward Stander, who, like Foley, wears the No. 8 shirt. “We have good structures. ‘Axel’ left a lot of what we’re working on, how we want to play.”
“Coming back to Paris after his death, you talk about it, the emotion of it, and it catches you again. It’s tough, you remember from last time, you get very emotional,” Stander added.
Racing did their part to remember Foley at the start of the match at the Stade Yves-du-Manoir.
They walked out on to the pitch wearing the red shirts of Munster with the name of Foley on the back of their warm-up jerseys.
Both sets of fans joined in a round of applause in honor of the Irishman, while his nickname of “Axel” was splashed across a number of placards inside the ground.
Racing coach Ronan O’Gara, a former Munster flyhalf, hailed both teams for their tributes to Foley.
“He’d be very proud of what has happened,” O’Gara told Sky Sports. “It’s so strange to think about him in the past tense, and I don’t think I can have my head around that. It’s very, very odd.”
Munster are to face Glasgow next weekend in Scotland, where victory would ensure a place in the knockout round.
The Irish side romped to a 38-0 win in the teams’ first meeting in October.
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