Munster sweat on Murray scan results

Munster are sweating on the results of a medical scan on Conor Murray’s neck injury ahead of their do-or-die European Champions Cup clash at Saracens this Saturday.

Anthony Foley’s side have to win in north London this weekend if they are to remain in the hunt for a quarter-final place for the 15th time in 16 seasons and Ireland and Lions scrum-half Murray will be crucial to fulfilling those ambitions in this penultimate pool encounter at Allianz Park.

Yet the first-choice number nine missed training at the University of Limerick yesterday, with head coach Foley saying Murray only participated in an organisational walk-through having injured his neck in contact as he scored a try in the Pro12 victory at Zebre last Saturday.

“He didn’t train today,” Foley said. “He did ‘org’ this morning and didn’t train. We’re getting the scan read so we’ll find out more later.”

Asked whether Murray was a doubt for Saturday, Foley added: “Everyone you send into a scan machine (is a doubt) these days, you’d be very reluctant to send any forward into it because something is going to show up, so we just need to make sure he’s functional.”

Number 8 Robin Copeland is definitely out of the Saracens game having injured his shoulder in the St Stephen’s Day victory over Leinster along with loosehead prop Dave Kilcoyne (knee) and centre Andrew Smith (knee) but Foley also returned from Italy pleased to have seen back Keith Earls and loosehead James Cronin make successful comebacks from injury as replacements. Whether that will be enough to earn starting places at Allianz Park this weekend is another matter, the Munster boss stressed.

“To be honest, having James Cronin and Keith Earls training and back in the squad with us, I’ll take that.

“You have to look at what the weekend took out of them, they trained today fully and we need to see how they rock up tomorrow so we can make an assessment on them.”

Veteran lock Paul O’Connell is set to return to the starting line-up having been rested from the trip to Italy last weekend and the Ireland captain yesterday restated his intention to reach a decision on his future beyond his current contract.

O’Connell, who will turn 36 in October during the latter stages of the World Cup, is contracted with the IRFU until June 2016 and he told TV3: “I probably need to make up my mind fairly soon.

“I’m just trying to enjoy my play at the moment and try to be in the best physical condition as I can for the World Cup and I’ll see after that. It’s either going to be after the World Cup or probably that summer, 2016.

“It’s about listening to your body and, look, I think I’m in good shape at the moment and I think I’ll be in good shape at the World Cup. It doesn’t mean I’ll keep on playing. It’s just a decision I’ll have to make, probably in the next few months, but I’m fairly undecided at the moment.”