CONOR MURRAY ENCAPSULATES much that is good about Joe Schmidt’s Ireland side.
The scrum-half is defensively strong, happily enters the collisions, looks to dominate territory and build pressure through kicking, passes accurately, works hard from ruck to ruck, remains composed at all times and picks his moments to attack.
Despite his rise in recent years, there remains room for further growth from the 25-year-old in the coming months and seasons, again much like Schmidt’s Ireland.
The latest success for Murray and Ireland came on Saturday evening against France, an 18-11 victory that the Munster halfback felt was built on defensive foundations.
“A win against the French is always nice,” said Murray following game.
Defensively, first and foremost, I thought we did really well to hold them out. They were in their jouez-type game at certain stages of the second half and eventually broke through us and got a score.”
“If it wasn’t for such good defence from the lads in the front line it could have been a lot worse. A lot of credit needs to go to them for getting off the ground and making those tackles.”
Murray was unsurprised to see the “big lad” that is Robbie Henshaw top of the tackles completed list with 15, but pointed to Johnny Sexton and Jared Payne’s efforts as defenders in that front line too.
Having Sexton back alongside him was a welcome feature of the game for Murray. Pre-match talk of Mathieu Bastareaud being used to target the Ireland out-half caused Murray no real concern.
“He’s a huge leader in the team and having him back is always going to be a positive and it’s going to add something to the group,” explained Murray. “He got man of the match, kicked our points and put us in really good areas throughout the game.
“There was talk about that [Bastareaud going after him], but Johnny’s a big lad and he can look after himself. He doesn’t shy away from anything like that. So if he heard that during the week it would probably only rev him up more, get a bit more out of himself.”
Sexton was indeed vital to Ireland’s tactical game, but Murray played as important a role in that as ever with his box kicking from the base of rucks inside the Ireland half.
The former St. Munchin’s man explained what Schmidt’s side intend to do with such efforts and assessed their success in this department against the French.
“I suppose it’s an exit strategy for the team,” outlined Murray. “If we’ve a lineout just outside the 22, we might go for a maul, set up a ruck, take another phase and then just have a winger or fullback ready to chase with a good line on the outside.
“We just make sure we’re on our feet and ready to put pressure on the ball in the air. Tonight some were contested in the air, some were a little bit long. The lads tackled man and ball for the majority of the game.
“I know one in the second half down the left hand side – not sure who caught it – they managed to get away and put us under a bit of pressure. But the majority of our exiting was quite good. There were one or two that probably won’t be enough against England.”
The Ireland scrum-half points to a range of other areas Ireland must improve upon for that test against Stuart Lancaster’s team on 1 March in Dublin, harping back to that insistent desire for “accuracy” in all aspects of the game.
Last year was a really tight game [in Twickenham],” said Murray. “It’s going to be a really hard-fought intense game and we’ll have to lift it up again.
“Probably being a little bit biased on my role, but our exiting has to be a bit better. We need to be able to contest the likes of Mike Brown, Anthony Watson and Jonny May in the air. If they get long balls kicked to them and they run it back, they can be lethal.
“That’ll be an area that will have to improve and I’m sure Joe is going to find a few more for us to work on.”
- Reporting by Sean Farrell.
