Murphy focuses on the collective

GEORDAN MURPHY goes into today’s final World Cup warm-up against England convinced both he and the Ireland squad are moving in the right direction ahead of the tournament in New Zealand.

For Murphy, it will be just his third game since sustaining a serious foot injury when captaining Leicester against Northampton in January, while the team has had a stuttering start to its preparations with three Test defeats in a row heading into today’s game at the Aviva Stadium, Dublin.

There are questions marks attached to player and squad alike but the man who won the battle for the full-back berth believed to have been vacated last week by Felix Jones’s foot injury believes the run against England this afternoon will prove another significant step towards hitting the ground running in World Cup Pool C on September 11.