Munster scrum-half Murray starts against USA

Munster's Conor Murray has been charged with the scrum-half duties for Ireland in their World Cup Pool C opener against the USA on Sunday.

Ireland coach Declan Kidney has plumped for the Munster man to give him his first international start.

Ireland will field a strong team to face Eddie O’Sullivan’s Eagles as Gordon D’Arcy passed fit following a quicker-than-expected recovery from a calf strain that delayed his arrival in New Zealand by four days. He will form a tried and tested midfield partnership with captain Brian O’Driscoll.

Tom Court, Shane Jennings and Geordan Murphy have taken ostensibly the places of loosehead prop Cian Healy, back-rower Sean O’Brien and full-back Rob Kearney who should be fit and available for selection for the following next weekend’s big game against Australia in Auckland.

Ulster’s Andrew Trimble might have believed he merited a place on the wing having started all four warm-up Tests but he loses out to Tommy Bowe and Keith Earls.

The pack will see Stephen Ferris start at blindside with Jennings at seven and Jamie Heaslip occupying his usual berth at No.8 as Kidney tries to gain supremacy in the tackle area.

But it is the inclusion of the Munster scrum-half that has tongues wagging, not least because of his age.

22-year-old Murray’s first Ireland cap came in August as a substitute in Bordeaux against France and he reprised the role off the bench against England in Dublin in the final warm-up Test on August 27.

Kidney said: “He’s been going well at training and we said we’d judge it off that.”

Murray’s performances were enough to earn a place in Kidney’s World Cup squad at the expense of provincial team-mate Tomás O’Leary and now the Ireland coach believes he has done enough since arriving in New Zealand to usurp the more experienced Eoin Reddan, who will start on the bench at Stadium Taranaki, and Isaac Boss despite his international inexperience.

“If we are to know, now is the time to know.

“I would be giving him a mixed message if I told him we were doing anything with a view to next week. It’s on the back of what he’s done; he deserves a go, even though it is his first start.

“We think he is good enough to start. It’s a big call, giving him the first game of the World Cup, but what he has been doing, I believe merits it.”

IRELAND (v USA): Murphy, Bowe, O'Driscoll, D'Arcy, Earls, Sexton, Murray, Court, Best, Ross, O'Callaghan, O'Connell, Ferris, Jennings, Heaslip

Subs: Flannery, Buckley, D Ryan, Leamy, Reddan, O'Gara, Trimble