Murray so close to his return but Munster keen to exercise caution

CONOR Murray could make his long-awaited comeback this Sunday as the Ireland scrum-half has made his full return to Munster training.

And Johann van Graan’s side have been handed a double boost ahead of their Guinness PRO14 clash with Zebre, with centre Chris Farrell primed to end his 10-month injury lay-off.

Both Murray and Farrell took part in full training yesterday with their Munster team-mates, and will be in contention to feature this weekend if they come through this week’s training.

Murray last played during Ireland’s summer tour to Australia and hasn’t featured for Munster this season due to a neck injury, while Farrell has been recovering from a knee injury picked up on Ireland duty in the Six Nations.

Munster coach JP Ferreira said it was a relief to have the duo back in training, but sounded a note of caution regarding Murray’s comeback and cited the recent neck injuries suffered by Tyler Bleyendaal and retired South African prop Julian Redelinghuys as warning signs.

“With Conor you just have to wait out the process and get him strong enough,” said Ferreira.

“He’s in the same boat as Chris Farrell, training, he’s on the pitch. We haven’t made a call on (his availability), he’s just got to get through training and it’s got to be the all clear for him from us and the Irish camp.

“It’s like Tyler (Bleyendaal), with a neck injury you can’t take any risks. You have a guy like Julian Redelinghuys, one game and it almost caused him to be a quadriplegic.

“You can’t take any risks with neck injuries.”