LEINSTER COACH TANIA Rosser says Ireland head coach Greg McWilliams should be doing everything he can to get Jenny Murphy back on board for the upcoming Women’s Six Nations.
The influential centre scored two tries against Connacht on the opening weekend of the Women’s Interprovincial Championships and crossed again during another impressive outing in defeat to Munster last Saturday.
And ahead of this weekend’s trip to play Ulster, Leinster head coach Rosser – who added that she felt Murphy’s yellow card against Munster was a harsh call – highlighted the Old Belvedere player’s form as one of the most pleasing aspects of Leinster’s two interpro outings.
The combination between Aoife Dalton and Jenny Murphy; that’s a great centre partnership, and if I was the Irish coach I’d be on to Jenny Murphy straight away and getting her back in, and I would take everything to do that.
“She’s just guided Aoife through the last two matches and that means Aoife can just be herself, explore it, have a crack, because she knows Jenny is always on her inside looking out for her
“She (Murphy) just gels the whole squad together. She also puts her arm around the shoulder when someone needs it, and she’s also not afraid to call the old ones out as well. So it’s everything. It’s not just on the pitch, it’s off the pitch support.
“She’s even a good one for me to go to and have a chat to, just to get the thoughts of what is coming from the players along with the two captains.”
Ireland Women’s coach McWilliams is currently planning for the 2023 Six Nations, which kicks-off on 25 March.
Murphy, 33, won the last of her 31 Ireland caps during the 2017 World Cup.
“She’s loving rugby at the moment. I don’t know if Ireland is the place she wants to be. Certainly if I was the Irish coach I’d want her in there; but you talk to Jenny, she’s loving her rugby and it’s probably the best rugby I’ve seen her play in the last two or three years, because she’s actually enjoying what she’s doing.
“I think Jenny is the type of person where if she loves it, and she knows people have got her best interests at heart, she’ll perform and do anything for you.”
Leinster go into the final weekend of interpro fixtures chasing leaders Munster by five points, and Rosser is confident her team can brush up on the errors which saw them slip to a 26-17 defeat at Musgrave Park last weekend.
“I think the girls, we force our offloading game too much, rather than snapping and having a look and making eye contact with the player coming on… Our penalty count needs to be down. The discipline that we can control, essentially. The girls being offside and things like that.
“But I think we were quite close. It was 21-17 with three or four minutes to go, so we’re still in the game and giving us another five minutes, we probably would have scored if we had kept the ball in hand.
“Ulster have really developed over the last couple of years,” Rosser continued. “Their head coach Neill Alcorn has done a great job up there with his development.
“Their props have experience, they’ll give our front row a good battle in the scrums but all props love that. Their 10, Ella (Durkan) is fantastic, she played well. And you saw it in them, they fought right to the end (v Connacht) so we’re not expecting an easy game. If we don’t front up this week we’ll be in trouble.”
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