Murray kicks on from autumn test

Still only 24 and with a career trajectory that already features a World Cup and British & Irish Lions Test series victory, the Munster scrum-half is in no danger of having his success go to his head and he is prepared to accept that Ireland head coach Joe Schmidt may have done him a huge favour in that regard when he delivered the first major setback of his rugby career last November.
Home from the Lions tour to Australia with reputation considerably enhanced, and nicely established as first-choice No 9 for province and country, Murray received the mother of all bubble-bursters from Schmidt when he was dropped for the middle of that month’s Guinness Series Tests, against the Wallabies. The incoming national head coach may have just been rotating his squad as he installed his former Leinster charge Eoin Reddan in the Test 15 butdemotion to the bench had a profound effect on Murray that he now sees as a positive.