Ronan O'Gara: Conor Murray’s goose cooked? Far from it. It’s just the brutality of pro sport
Although Gibson Park is now in control of the number nine jersey, Conor Murray still has a future for Ireland, Ronan O'Gara writes. Picture: INPHO/Dan Sheridan
There’s a scene in the film version of Michael Lewis’ ‘Moneyball’ when Billy Beane, the General Manager of the Oakland Athletics is advising his Assistant GM on how to inform players that they are done, finito at the ballclub.
“Just be straight with them. No fluff, just facts. ...Would you rather get a bullet to the head or five to the chest and bleed to death?”
The selection of Jamison Gibson-Park over Conor Murray for Saturday’s Test match at Twickenham has the chattering classes all aflutter. It’s a logical selection, Gibson Park is now in control of that jersey, and if he keeps playing the way he is, he is going to be Ireland’s No 9.
Does that mean that Conor Murray is staring down the barrel in terms of his international future? Yes.
Does it mean he’s done for? Absolutely no way.
Murray is going nowhere. He is only 31 and is a World Cup cycle behind Jonny Sexton, so his goose is far from cooked. People aren’t talking about Jonny retiring because there’s no obvious ten to pressure him or step into his shoes. Just because there’s a potential Test nine putting pressure on Murray doesn’t mean anything more than a good selection dilemma for Andy Farrell and Irish rugby.
The Munster man is in a straight competition now for a starting jersey, a fact that has nothing to do with age. Conor’s quality but Gibson Park isn’t going to stepping aside for him. That’s the brutality of professional sport. Mutual respect only goes so far.
Besides, this is really good for Conor. He can see now there is someone who can take place, and if that develops into a trend, international career could be over.
Competitors respond and his training performances will go up a notch. Look how he came in at ten the last day. Had he come in against Wales in his preferred scrum-half role, he would have ripped it up even more. But it is important he sees that the show goes on without him.
The process is brutal. It has been and it always should be.
The ideal scenario as a coach allows you to manage the new guy into the position. But where professional sport has changed radically is in the fact that you can’t have a fixed mindset on anything anymore.
The guys who have credit in the bank have a lot of test caps behind them, but beyond that as a coach, you can’t shift your mind too far back or too far forward – it’s the here and now that counts. How you get a team performing consistently is the key goal.
Knowing the player is one thing, knowing the person even more important. What you see in training with your eyes is a decent indicator. A coach must decide: Is this stalwart of ours about to fall off a cliff? Am I better off shooting him before he has a slow death?
The one thing you cannot control is Father Time and a body can literally break down in front of you. Jonny’s 35 now and misses tomorrow with a hamstring strain. Whereas most chat is around Murray v Gibson Park, the more important debate for Ireland is at ten in the continuing uncertainty over Joey Carbery’s comeback timetable. At the moment, Plan B is very much up in the air.
This is why England tomorrow is a nice free shot for Ross Byrne. A good performance puts him in the conversation. It puts him in people’s minds as Jonny’s back-up. ‘Well he did it at Twickenham…’ That Jonny isn’t on the bench is good for Byrne too. There’s no legend looming on the sideline.
This is a perfect audition for Byrne and for Billy Burns. And there are not 80,000 fans breathing down on them, scrutinising every move and mistake.
I am starting to think that there’s a slight advantage for the away team with the continuing ‘ ’ (behind closed doors) restrictions. There’s a little novelty in going to an away stadium while for the home team, it’s the same stadium and surroundings you are used to but it’s empty and eerie and does nothing for you.
That didn’t help La Rochelle much, mind you, Sunday night at Stade Francais’ Stade Jean Bouin. With no-one in the stands, I was like a coach at a kids’ game, moving along with the play, up and down the pitch, stopping and encouraging where the action is.
But the 35-13 loss left a bad taste in my mouth. You want to focus on process and performance but let’s not kid ourselves that the result doesn’t matter. How important is the result for Farrell and Ireland tomorrow? These are unique circumstances which have created a winter one-off. If Ireland were meeting England in the Six Nations, how many of these calls does Irish management make? So, there’s an opportunity to freshen it up, but it’s not like the result is immaterial.
If any of these November games justifies a billing, it is this one. There’s also the connection with the Irish support, which is looking for something to appreciate. They are bored with their lads in green chasing box kicks and playing through so many rucks. The Irish supporter is looking for a reason to get in behind the Farrell project. Trouble is that sounds a lot easier writing it here than it will be come 3pm Saturday because Eddie Jones’ England will be good.
When pundits are pointing to the nuanced progress we saw with the ball against Wales, they refer to the way we are identifying space and getting the ball into that space via the hands. There’s more offloading but people must understand that with that comes more errors. Which brings the process back to accuracy. England, with their attacking kicking game, have more killers than the French had in Paris.
Starting Hugo Keenan at full-back will be informative, and part of an interesting back three with Earlsie and James Lowe. Lowe is a breath of fresh air but he’s new too – let’s see what he is like after ten games. That he is such an exciting proposition speaks to the fact that Ireland has so few in that X Factor department. Every second player with the Crusaders is like that. But what James Lowe shows is his genuine gratitude for being a rugby player – some lads need to take a step back and say ‘I am playing test rugby, how good is this?’ It should never be viewed as a job – I am not saying the Irish lads are like that - but as Dan Carter says, pressure is a privilege.
Conor Murray knows that.
