‘Winning a trophy can take a bit of heat off’
Murray urging Munster to shake off Euro hangover
THE last few weeks have presented a painful, yet familiar feeling for Conor Murray. Amid Munster’s preparations for their massive Pro14 quarter-final date with Edinburgh tomorrow, the scrum-half is still struggling to shake off the sense of disappointment that has hung over the province since their tame Champions Cup semi-final exit to Racing.
After the heroics of beating French giants Toulon at Thomond Park in the quarter-finals, by halftime in Bordeaux the Munster challenge was dead and buried.
As Murray sat in the dressing room, the only thought running his head was ‘not again’. While Munster clawed back the deficit in the second period as Racing took their foot off the gas, the result was never in doubt, and almost three weeks later, the frustration is still evident in his voice.
‘I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t think about the Racing game quiet a bit since then, and I still am thinking about it,’ he says, admitting there is a danger Munster could carry a European hangover into tomorrow’s mustwin Pro14 clash with Edinburgh.
‘We put a lot of pressure on getting into a European final and winning that, so again it’s probably down to an individual thing — how you deal with it yourself and how you pitch up on Saturday. Johann [van Graan] and the coaching staff have gone through it, we’ve reviewed the game, we’ve looked at why we lost it, we’ve trained in the areas we thought were weak and tried to fix that, and hopefully we have done. He’s got the team in a good place.’
Of course, this is a team that still has plenty to play for, as the province have an opportunity to end their season with a first trophy in seven years.
That said, their return at the business end of the competition has been disappointing over the last decade.
This is Munster’s seventh trip to the play-offs in the last nine years, but they haven’t managed to last the distance since the success of 2011, when Paul O’Connell captained the Reds to a 19-9 victory over Leinster in the Thomond Park decider.
Murray and winger Keith Earls are the only survivors from that day, and the 29-year-old acknowledges that the province must soon end that concerning trophy drought to avoid being labelled as perennial nearly-men.
‘In a way we probably need it because if we go another year without a trophy it builds that pressure again, and that’s the bold facts of it,’ he continues.
‘That’s in the back of our minds. Since the Racing game all we’ve wanted to do is perform this weekend, as close as we can to our potential, and if we do that, with respect to Edinburgh, who are on an unbelievable run of eight wins in nine games [in the Pro14] but we just want to show everyone how we can perform, and get rid of that Racing game — then to end with a trophy would take a bit of heat off.’
Murray explains that despite the disastrous start in Bordeaux, the squad haven’t tweaked anything in their approach leading into the Edinburgh game, where a win would set up a mouthwatering semi-final date with Leinster at the RDS on May 19.
‘Haven’t changed a thing. I don’t think we need to. It’s been addressed. We’ve looked at the clips, the black and white reasons why we lost the game and that’s been addressed. I don’t think we need to change... we’ve been doing so well for so long, or the majority of the season, that it’s worked for us.
‘It would be worse if the Racing game was the last game of the season, and you didn’t have a chance to play a game, play well and get over it, that’s the beauty of where we are this season; we have the chance to win a quarterfinal and perform and get back into good spirits — which we are.
‘We’ve gotten over it pretty well, we’re all mature enough to know how to get over these things, and the chance to win a trophy is massive — Europe is obviously number one, there’s never any hiding that with Munster, but to win a trophy would be brilliant for us as a group.
‘We’re a squad that’s very close with what we’ve done in the last two years, with the European semi-finals, the Pro12 final [last season], we have to dust ourselves off and get it done.’
Conor Murray was speaking in Dublin as eir sport and Guinness Pro14 announced a landmark partnership to broadcast every game for the next three years from the 2018/19 season.