Conor Murray’s training gives Joe Schmidt ‘food for thought’

Ireland boss Joe Schmidt has admitted Conor Murray’s performances in training this week has given him food for thought about selecting him for a surprise comeback against the All Blacks later this month.

First-choice scrum-half Murray has not played since Ireland’s third Test against Australia in Sydney last June having suffered a neck injury at Munster during pre-season and the 29-year-old was left out of head coach Schmidt’s 42-man squad for this month’s Guinness Series.

That led to All Blacks head coach Steve Hanson to wonder aloud whether one of the star players in Ireland’s defeat of his side two years ago was secretly preparing to face the world champions in Dublin on November 17, calling it a potential Irish “trick”.

Ireland assistant coach Simon Easterby revealed on Tuesday that Murray was training with a group of senior players at Carton House this week while a 26-man party flew to Chicago for tonight’s Test against Italy at Soldier Field.

Easterby said the scrum-half had not been ruled out of contention to face New Zealand in two weeks but while Schmidt called that prospect ‘unlikely’ the head coach could not help but be impressed by the Munster man’s efforts in training under his watch at Carton House.

“Based on his training in the last few days, he’s super, super sharp,” Schmidt said of Murray. “He did the bit of contact that we did, certainly his pass and his running (was sharp).

“We’re going to probably err on the side of being conservative with Conor, just because we want to make sure that he is fully comfortable before he returns to the pitch – whether it be for us or whether it be for Munster.

“It probably wouldn’t have been an intention of ours (to select him), but it’s not for a lack of him pushing. He pushed in the right manner because he trained in a very sharp manner.”

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Joe Schmidt on the team selection for #IREvITA in @TheRugbyWeekend

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As for specifically facing the All Blacks, Schmidt added: “Not hopeful. I think because we are going to err on the side of caution, I just think at this stage, he would be a very outside chance of being involved.

“That would be a tough ask. He hasn’t played since the third Test in Australia and then you’ve got play the All Blacks.

“Either way you mark it up against Aaron Smith, an absolute whippet, class pass, very good kicking game or TJ Perenara, who brings most of the above and probably a little bit more physicality with it.

“So I think one of the things for us is, what we want to do is and be able to do is, say that we’ve got these guys who are fully fit, they have got a bit of playing rhythm, we want to be as positive as we can be about that.

“Then we will balance things up. To be honest, he would have to be really flying in that New Zealand week to be involved.

“But it definitely gave me food for thought.”