Kieran Marmion plugs the leaks in absence of majestic Conor Murray

This week Ronan O’Gara talks nerves and the sporting men that put them to an end.

When word filtered through last week that Conor Murray was out of the Ireland side to play England, I developed a strange urge to take a leak. That nervous type of leak.

Whereever you were, in the office, on the sofa, in the car, if your weekend was hanging on Ireland beating England, you developed a mild sense of panic at that moment. Not that Kieran Marmion was starting, or that Luke McGrath was back-up. More that Murray was missing.