Boks win hits home for Murray
LAST Saturday was a Test match with considerable difference for Conor Murray. Instead of being at the Aviva in the thick of the action, he was at home in Limerick watching from afar. An odd experience? You bet.
‘We got the weekend off,’ he explained, revealing Joe Schmidt left his front-liners to their own devices while the shadow squad made hard work of Fiji in Dublin.
‘It was my mother’s birthday last week and I was in camp, so we ordered a sushi takeaway to my house, threw on the fire and watched the game. It was a different experience because you were there a week ago [at the heart of beating South Africa] and then a week later you’re at home watching it on TV, which was strange.
‘You take the positives out of it. You got a weekend off, got to relax and come in here fresh for a big week this week… but it was weird. I’m vocal enough [watching] because you would have trained with the lads last week, knew the plays and patterns they were trying to do.
‘You were screaming in our [Ireland team] language and my mother and sister just couldn’t understand what I was doing. I can’t listen to people around me when I’m watching a game. I get into my own world, so I wasn’t really talking to them for about 80 minutes. Then we had a nice evening after that.’
Rare chances to rest up away from the international furnace are to be valued in the wider scheme of player welfare, as Murray was one of three Ireland players to start all three Test matches against New Zealand on the exhausting Lions tour.
His three-day weekend off in Limerick felt even more savoury due to the clinical manner Ireland dismissed South Africa in the November opener. Game plans don’t usually come off precisely, but this one did.
‘South Africa was a decent, solid performance. We were very clinical. It was a weird game, we finished off a few chances and that was it. It was a strange feeling... the game seemed to flow quite easily. We got scores on the board early and managed to stay away from them, an unusual feeling against a South African team.
‘I was chatting to Johann [Van Graan, the new Munster coach] after and they weren’t happy with how they went. Some balls didn’t stick and things like that allowed us to stay in front. It was a clinical performance from us.
‘I wouldn’t say we ticked all our boxes but a lot of the things we prepared for showed up quite well. That’s the name of the game. You have to be happy with that performance against a South Africa team who did struggle at the start of the Championship but who grew into the campaign and got way better.
‘They still have really good players and beat France at the weekend, which is never an easy thing to do and puts our result into perspective. Now we have got to kick on again.’
That means beating Argentina. Murray has fond memories as a 14-year-old at home in Patrickswell when Alan Quinlan’s try decided the 2003 World Cup meeting with Argentina. Far less happy is his own finals involvement against the Pumas, losing at the quarter-final stage two years ago.
However, he insists wrapping up the series on a high is Saturday’s prime motivation, not settling an old score. ‘It’s the last November game and everyone wants to leave this series with a good performance. You can feel it out there at training,’ he said, adding his flourishing off-field relationship with Johnny Sexton has helped the pair become one of the world’s best half-back partnerships.
‘Getting to know Johnny as a person over the last few years, being mates with him now rather than how it was when I first came in when it was just a fella I played with, I know this guy off the field now too and that definitely makes it easier.
‘You know the way their mind works and what they might be thinking, and then you are together so much in training, there is an understanding and it [their relationship] is in a really good place.’