Murphy ready to carve out Irish ‘destiny’

GEORDAN MURPHY smiles every time he hears that this Ireland team is on the brink of ‘destiny’.

Once the irony subsides, he can't help but wince ever so slightly at the very mention of the word.

England visit Dublin tomorrow with a squad midway through a facelift and nursing the wounds of two opening championship losses. The evidence is damning, but scarcely conclusive prof that the world champions are about to record their third successive Six Nations loss and that Ireland are about to annex a first Grand Slam since 1948.

"I haven't heard the word 'destiny' mentioned around the camp yet anyway," counters an otherwise relaxed Murphy.

"Even if we manage to beat England, it still doesn't mean we deserve to win the Six Nations championship just because we've been together for quite a while and we've all got a certain amount of caps. You've got to earn it."

This isn't the usual pre-game PC guff. Murphy readily accepts that the scales have shifted since the winner-take-all Grand Slam decider at Lansdowne two years ago which England won 43-6. Now it's Ireland wearing the favourites' tag, boasting the more settled side and exuding the confidence bred by an unbeaten streak stretching back a good 12 months.

Murphy never takes anything for granted. How could he after his torturous afternoon in Edinburgh almost 18 months ago?

Back then he was finally settling in to his long sought-after number 15 green jersey and being tipped to take the World Cup by storm.

Then a broken left leg in a seemingly innocuous tackle against the Scots left him idle and irritated for the bones of five and a half months. Ireland may have exorcised 2003 from their psyche with that most famous of victories in Twickenham last year, but Murphy was still in the final days of recuperation at the time and looked on from the stand.

When he thinks of England now, it's 2003 that is most fresh in the memory.

"We threw everything we had at England in that first half but we just didn't get the scores.

"Jonny Wilkinson kept the scoreboard ticking over and all the time we were hammering away at the English defensive line. They kept sneaking back up the pitch and picking up three points and, try as we might, we just couldn't get a try that day. We tried to play a bit too expansive in the last few minutes and got caught for it.

"I threw an intercept to Will Greenwood for one try we were mad keen to get a couple of scores.

"Hopefully, we won't be in that position this weekend where we have to chase the game like that."

Few expect them to have to, facing an English side without Wilkinson and shorn of born leaders in the mould of Martin Johnson, Lawrence Dallaglio and Neil Back. Yet, where most of us see question marks in the England squad, Murphy sees endless options.

Exiled in Leicester, he's better placed than most to make judgements.

Olly Barkley and Charlie Hodgson may have fluffed six kicks against the French, but that still wasn't enough for Murphy's club-mate Andy Goode to progress further than the bench. This despite the 24-year-old kicking 11 from 11 kicks against Newcastle last weekend.

"These guys are very, very talented," he stresses.

"I'm playing with and against these guys week-in, week-out. I've said all along that if that English team clicks they could be a very dangerous outfit.

"They've shown touches of what they can do in their first two matches and they were unlucky in both of them. If they get a couple of scores early and settle in, they will be hard to stop."

Murphy isn't coy about Ireland's form after a stuttering opening in Rome. The win in Scotland two weeks ago was the perfect fillip.

"Murrayfield has been a tough place for Irish teams to go in the past and after an early Scottish onslaught, the way we came back was fantastic. A lot of people were saying that without Brian and D'Arce and after Scotland's performance in Paris, it was nearly 50-50 and that we might lose.

"To put so many points on the Scots after that was very satisfying. It was big."

For this Newbridge College graduate, the return to Edinburgh brought a sense of closure on the injury that robbed him of his plane ticket to Australia and left him instead with a metal pin in his knee.

"It was very strange to go back. The day before the game we went to the ground to do a bit of kicking. I got off the bus and went through the dressing room doors and then I got a flashback of being wheeled out the other way on a stretcher.

"When I ran out onto the pitch I couldn't help but look at the spot where it happened and I got a bit of a chill, a case of the shivers, goosebumps, everything."