Conor Murray: ‘The guys who came on laid that platform’

Ronan O’Gara served as chaperone when Conor Murray stepped blinking into the white heat of Test rugby on an August night in Bordeaux six years ago and the Munster scrum-half has returned that favour more than a few times since.

It was Murray providing the steady service and wise words when Declan Kidney parachuted Paddy Jackson into the side at O’Gara’s expense in Murrayfield two seasons later and again when an inexperienced Ian Keatley was charged with running the show in Rome in 2015.

Ian Madigan has benefited from his sterling service more than once down the years too and then there was Joey Carbery who could hardly have asked for a more polished nine when he was introduced against the All Blacks in Chicago last November.