Conor Murray insists this group won’t rest on their laurels
Scrum-half Murray scored the decisive try early in the second half as 14-man Ireland stunned the Springboks to claim a first ever win in South Africa at the historic Newlands stadium. His try, finishing superbly well at the end of a great attacking move, came after Ireland had weathered a storm during a 10-minute period with only 13 men after Robbie Henshaw’s yellow card piled even more pressure on the tourists already up against it following CJ Stander’s 23rd minute sending off.
“With 13 men it was getting quite close, but yeah, I think we did (believe),” Murray said following the 26-20 victory.
“Sometimes when you lose a man it galvanises the team and it can play tricks with the opposition’s minds; you probably think it’s going to be a little bit easier.
“We kept our front-line really, really strong. Their ball-carriers are tough to put down, but we really stuck together and kept at the task and when we had the ball we believed in our structures and shape and we showed a lot of heart there.
“We hung on towards the end, it made it a little bit nervous towards the end but it’s a hugely proud day, a historic win to be the first Irish team to win here. At Newlands especially, I think it’s the second oldest ground in the world and it’s just a really, really special day and there’s a great feeling in the dressing-room.”
Murray also praised the players that came into the side in the absence of a number of frontliners and were not found wanting when Ireland’s backs were against the wall.
“ People are probably talking about the players that we’re missing and I said it a couple of weeks ago, there’s a lot of youth in this team, a lot of people who haven’t been exposed to this Test rugby that we believe were good enough and they stood up today.
“Paddy (Jackson) did really well at No 10, people probably thought that with him coming in with such big boots to fill with Johnny (Sexton) out, but he took to it naturally.
“Lads like Ultan (Dillane) coming off the bench and making a big impact, Rhys (Ruddock) ... all these guys who are training really well and have been in camps for a long time finally got a chance today and made it count. It’s a big day.” Ireland can now set new targets for this tour and with a second Test at Ellis Park, Johannesburg looming next Saturday, there is a series victory in the offing. Yet Murray is fully prepared for the Springboks to bounce back with avengeance.
“Definitely, they’ll get better. They’d a number of new caps and probably didn’t have the cohesion that they expect or are used to.
“At the same time, we played well. We dealt with what they threw at us and played good rugby.
We’re just going to enjoy this win and be positive and learn from it. We’ll get better, definitely. We had a few areas that we weren’t quite happy with, a bit of loose ball focus at times in and around their ‘22 when we could have built pressure.
“Especially with (new defence coach) Andy Farrell coming in, our new defensive structure is really good to play in.
“We’ve had a game now to test that, there’ll be little tweaks here and there that we’ll have to manage but we can get better and we know they will.
“It’s a great win, we’ll enjoy it and there’s obviously a chance to win a Test series now as well which is massive. We’ve got the historic win, now with this group we always seek to push on and want more.
“It’s probably selfish and greedy, but it’s a good thing too.
“That bit of history is banked, we can enjoy it but then we’ll focus on next week.”
