Murphy moving on from France error
His tours-de-force against antipodean giants, South Africa and Australia, during the Autumn International series now appear to have been overtaken by a missed tackle against France, one that allowed Raphael Ibanez through for a first half try.
Somehow he was painted as the scapegoat by some commentators but it was surprising that some stronger criticism came from the season’s most consistent player Ronan O’Gara. We were watching a thoughtful O’Gara reflecting on a season as someone whose standards and expectations have sky-rocketed in the last 12 months. But he seemed particularly bothered by Murphy’s error.
“It’s so soft, it’s bloody annoying, that’s terrible,” he says while viewing jazzed-up replays of the Ibanez’s try.
“There’s no pace in the French attack, they’re going across the pitch, everyone is covering and then, a bad miss — you can’t afford that at this level.”
It was a mistake that cost Murphy his place for the seminal England match.
“Everyone would have wanted to be involved in that game,” recalled Murphy earlier this week in Buenos Aires.
“It was a massive game: England in Croke Park. It doesn’t get bigger than that. That was a real low point for me. I don’t pick the team so there was nothing I could do about it. When the side was announced that was it — it wasn’t like you had the luxury to hang around with the team. The team was announced on the Tuesday and they move on to do their own thing. There’s no hotel room for you. You just go back to your club.
“It was a strange week for me actually because I went straight back to Leicester and they were saying ‘we weren’t expecting you back here’. They said I could sit on the bench for the weekend game, but changed their minds and gave me the weekend off.
“But that was the best thing for me — I got away from rugby for two or three days, came back on the Monday feeling fresh and looking forward to playing again.”
In many ways he’s seeking redemption after the Six Nations in Argentina and has done little wrong here so far. Murphy is candid enough talk about “that” tackle, though inwardly he’s hurting that the good aspects of his play against Les Bleus were lost amidst the dissection of that first half mistake.
“I’m not the type of person who’d ever ignore it. I accept the fact I made a mistake and I missed the tackle. I think I did a lot of positive things in that game as well. I held my hand up and said that. You have to take it on board and you have to accept that as well. Sometimes you get a lot of abuse for maybe one thing and people don’t take into account what it takes to do positive things after that.”
When he returned to the Ireland fold to win his 47th cap in Santa Fe last weekend — first as a blood sub for Gavin Duffy and then at the out half position on the hour mark after Paddy Wallace retired injured — it was asking a lot of someone who barely had two sessions to rehearse from the pivotal position. But high on confidence after the Tigers captured the Guinness Premiership and EDF Cup and having played a blinder in the Heineken Cup final defeat, Murphy coped well.
“I hadn’t a whole load of time. I knew the moves and knew the plays, and knew we we’re going to do anything too complicated. It was fine. I had no problem but I hadn’t started a game there in a while. The way I play (at fullback) I get my hands on the ball as often as I can.”
He’s restored to his favourite position at fullback today, but expects the Argentineans to fly a few testing ‘garryowens’ with ‘welcome to Velez Sarsfield’ on the ball. But fielding ball – as he did most notably and courageously in Thomond Park last January — is a facet of the game he really enjoys. “We’ve seen a lot of footage of the Argentineans. They played against Leicester during the Six Nations. I wasn’t involved but I saw the footage of that. It was against one of our so-called weaker teams and the tactic was still to put a ball up. From 40 metres out they like to put pretty mighty bombs. It’s a good tactic, it works for them but we’ll have to deal with that if we hope to win the game.”
He’s moving on from the France game. Expect a special 80 minutes from Murphy.
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