Conor Murray calls for Munster passion play

Conor Murray has lamented the lack of hunger and passion in Munster’s performances this season but believes both qualities will be fully on show for Saturday’s Aviva Stadium showdown with Leinster.

This weekend’s Guinness PRO12 derby pits second against fourth as Leinster strive to close the gap on leaders Connacht and keep third-place Scarlets at bay, while Munster are desperate to cling onto the final play-off spot with Ulster and Glasgow closing in on fourth, just a point behind.

With their failure to qualify for the following weekend’s Champions Cup quarter-finals, the trip to Leinster represents a pivotal moment in a disappointing Munster campaign and Ireland scrum-half Murray is eager to make amends for his team’s missteps earlier in the campaign.

“Our season hasn’t gone quite to plan so there is probably a bit of frustration in our group to go up there and play with our hearts and hopefully with a bit more passion than we have this year,” Murray said. “Losses, not getting out of our group in the Champions Cup, not performing to the standard that we set for ourselves, you could talk for a while about those kind of things.

“The positive I take from that is you know how good we are and the quality we have in our team and we just have got to show it. It can be frustrating when you are trying your best every week and it’s not coming off. This weekend is a huge chance to show everyone how good we can be when we are probably going to be written off so I’m looking forward to it.”

After another impressive Six Nations campaign in the green number nine jersey, Murray returned to his province for an armchair ride off the bench last Friday night as the men in red ran seven tries in against Zebre to leapfrog Ulster into fourth place with a 47-0 win.

While he and his colleagues will not read too much into that win over the Italian strugglers, the scrum-half has noticed a rise in confidence and a defensive hunger among the squad he and his Ireland team-mates left behind at the end of January.

“It seems a more confident group. Because we didn’t qualify for Europe (quarter-finals) the lads’ heads were down and they just got together while we were away and knuckled down.

“We’re playing a lot of good stuff, we’re seeing that in the reviews and for us to come back into this group, they’re a confident group and they’re buzzing. There’s a great buzz about the place you feel like an outsider coming back into the group so there’s probably a challenge for a few of us to get up to speed.

Part of that increase in confidence is down to the two-month spell incoming Ireland defence coach Andy Farrell spent working with Munster’s coaches, Murray said. “It’s definitely left its mark. He worked really well with Ian Costello and gave him a few key messages and a few key bits of experience Cossie can pass on to us. There’s a hunger there in defence, it hasn’t been our strongest part this year but it’s something we’re constantly working on and it’s something that’ll have to be very strong for the final stages of the season.”

Defensive hunger will definitely be needed in Dublin on Saturday as Munster prepare to face a Leinster side smarting from their 7-6 defeat at Connacht last weekend. Watching that game from the comfort of his living room, Murray was under no illusions about the step up in intensity required from Munster’s last game to this.

“We were all watching their game against Connacht, I think we were all on our couches watching it and we realise how much tougher it’s going to be,” he said. “Obviously, the coaches will try and guide us and tell us what’s going to be tougher this week but we’ve all played in these games, we know it’s going to go up a level and they will be battle hardened. So we’ve got to get it mentally right and not expect the same as last weekend.”

“I think that’s going to stand to them more so than the game against Zebre will stand to us. It would probably be easy to fall in love with yourself after running in seven tries. You’ve just got to be mindful of the opposition. Zebre did start well but eventually we did break them down and things seemed to flow quite easily from then on. They won’t flow as easily against Leinster. If you do manage to go a score ahead they’re going to come back swinging for the full 80-plus minutes so we’ve got to be careful not to trick ourselves into thinking we’re that fantastic yet.

“We know there’s a much tougher task ahead this weekend.”