Conor Murray happy to get back to basics with Munster

For Conor Murray, there are so many reasons to be looking forward this week.

There is a World Cup campaign with Ireland to forget, for starters, and some catching up with the Munster way of doing things after four months in camp with the national squad.

There is also a Champions Cup campaign looming with a home opener against Treviso at Thomond Park kicking off the annual bid for European glory and a third continental title.

But chief among them, and underpinning all of the above, is the feeling Murray has that in a post-Paul O’Connell world, it is time for the new Munster to stand up and starting making some history of their own.

This Saturday’s game with their Italian Pro12 counterparts will mark the first time 13 years Munster have gone into a European fixture without either the recently departed veteran locks O’Connell and Donncha O’Callaghan in their squad, presenting an ideal opportunity for those that have followed in the footsteps of the Heineken Cup heroes of 2006 and 2008 to emerge from the shadows and lay down a marker for themselves using the experience they have accumulated these past few seasons.

Even with captain Peter O’Mahony among the injured and Felix Jones in retirement, the 26-year-old scrum-half believes there are plenty of candidates to follow stand-in skipper CJ Stander into the breach, not least himself.

“Obviously missing Paulie, in the dressing room you definitely realise it. But I think being away from the squad, CJ, he’s become a real leader in this team,” Murray said. “His experience over the last couple of years, just him, one example of being with Paulie and being with these older lads and listening to them, and understanding the standards that are expected. He almost sounds like Paulie now.

“He really gets it, and gets this club and gets where we want to go. He’s driving it along with a number of other players. It’s different without them, but Paulie and Donners and the likes, and ROG who have moved on, have educated the younger group of players underneath them and have passed on a few useful tips.

“There is a group of us, at a similar age who have been through Europe a few times and felt a few disappointments and a few good nights as well.

“It is good bit of experience in our books there, that we can get people together. Especially with this being our first time in Europe with this group of players.

“We do need a lift in intensity this weekend and for next weekend. So just trying to let people know that there has to be a difference in training this week, and a difference in mentality.

“You can’t get yourself up to the maximum every week, it’s physically impossible. So these weeks you have to keep a bit in the tank and push yourself that bit more.”

So far, so good, it seems, with Murray reporting a “niggly” first squad training session of the week on Tuesday, as players strive to get their roles nailed down. What is unusual for Murray is that this is just his second week with Munster this season, having returned from World Cup duty with a start last Saturday in the Pro12 win at Edinburgh, a cathartic experience given the disappointment of a quarter-final exit to Argentina on October 17.

“It was a tough thing to get over, it will probably live with a lot of players for a long time, hopefully until the next World Cup if we have a chance of getting there.

“We needed a bit of time off, but then you are coming back into Munster and they are on their own buzz, and they have their own goals and they’re performing really well and they are looking forward to big games.

“I kind of felt like an outsider coming back, with a lot of new faces, missing a lot of old faces. It did take a little while to get back into it, but it was just a bit different, and then you are straight into it, and training with the lads there is a good buzz. They are fully focused on the immediate future, and the games they are playing in. They drag you along and it was great to get back out on the pitch last week.

“It was good to get going again. Getting over a game like that World Cup quarter-final, I was talking to Joe (Schmidt) about it, it would be worse if we didn’t get to play another game for a couple of months.

“We are lucky that we are in the middle of our season, and we get to get out there and get rid of a few demons, and just get going again and focus on something new.”