Guessing Test side too tough a game, says Murray

It is not just the media and supporters who pass the time trying to second guess Warren Gatland’s selection of the British & Irish Lions team for the first Test against Australia.

Conor Murray admitted he and his fellow Lions are also playing the game and are having just as much difficulty coming up with a cast-iron XV to face the Wallabies in Brisbane a week on Saturday.

“Just sitting around with a couple of the lads from other countries we can’t pick the Test side,” Murray said. “In certain positions you’re trying to guess and we can’t. There’s unbelievable competition everywhere.”

Take Murray’s own position, scrum-half, where the Munster man gets another chance to shine tomorrow when he starts for the second time on this tour against the Combined Country XV in Newcastle.

Wales’s Mike Phillips, the 2009 Lions starting No.9, is the recognised front-runner while England’s Ben Youngs made a strong impression in the Brisbane rain on Saturday against the Queensland Reds, scoring a try and passing the pressure onto the 24-year-old Limerick man.

“He did really well,” Murray said of Youngs. “I thought the conditions got tougher as the game went on and he dealt with it really well. I have to just concentrate on Tuesday and try and do as best I can. With such a big squad people aren’t going to get that many more opportunities before the Test games and I presume in a couple of games leading up to it you’ll probably see the Test side. So as the games go on your chances are thinning down.”

Murray has had two chances already, making a big opening statement off the bench when he replaced Phillips during the opening game against the Barbarians in Hong Kong and then growing into the game he started in Perth against Western Force last Wednesday.

“I was quite happy with the run-out I got against the Baa-baas,” he said. “Against the Force it was frustrating in the first 30 minutes. They were really going at our breakdown and coming offside which stopped things flowing.

“But then as the second-half wore on I think we wore them down. They were getting a bit tired and we managed to find a bit of space which was pleasing.”

Murray is also learning to deal with a challenge he has found particularly difficult to meet during his short time in Australia.

“The abuse you hear from the crowd. It’s a different type of ‘banter’, as they say. You’ve just got to try and block that out. When you’re warming up, you can hear the Aussie lads screaming at (the players)..”