Probe no surprise for Conor Murray

Conor Murray has welcomed Champions Cup organisers’ formation of an Untoward Incident Review Group (UIRG) to investigate the handling of his collision with Glasgow’s Tim Swinson.

Murray, 27, received on-pitch treatment for a neck injury after he admitted making a mistimed tackle on the Warriors lock, but was not removed for a Head Injury Assessment (HIA) for another five minutes. The Munster scrum-half passed the first HIA and rejoined the game and has since completed World Rugby’s return-to-play protocols, as well as visiting a neurologist for added assurance that he did not suffer a concussion.

Yet, while he said Munster went “above and beyond” their player welfare obligations, Murray said he was not surprised EPCR asked its Medical Advisory Group to convene an Untoward Incident Review Group to look into his treatment last Saturday.

“Because of the hit, I fell on the ground and was a little bit still for a couple of seconds. That was because I was on the ground thinking to myself: ‘That was a big impact and my neck is sore now,’ but my head and brain was fine,” said Murray.

“I’m not surprised (about the UIRG) because they’re trying to protect players. They’re not trying to screw us over in any way, they’re trying to look after us. There was no panic in Munster; once it came out that there was an investigation, we didn’t panic, we’d followed every protocol and we’re fully confident...

“They’re trying to make the game safer and that impact probably looked worse than what it was and I’m not surprised.

“At Munster, our physios and doctors were confident that we’d followed everything and everything was clean.”

Murray said he had put his head on the wrong side of the on-rushing forward, with Swinson’s elbow making contact with his neck.

“I didn’t lose consciousness. Andrew Conway was beside me and I was talking to him, just saying: ‘It’s my neck. I just hurt my neck,’ which is what happened.

“Then, it just blew up after the game, because it’s a topic everyone wants to talk about now and it’s something that’s constantly improving and evolving. People are trying to find holes in it, I think.”