Murray won’t rest on laurels

Conor Murray’s name would be among the first on most people’s Ireland World Cup squad but memories of his own ascent to the 2011 tournament are keeping the scrum-half on his toes during the team’s training camps.

Murray may have been Ireland’s first-choice number nine for most of his international career but as far as the 30-year-old Munster star is concerned, as he targets a third World Cup campaign, he is locked in a battle with squad mates and fellow half-backs John Cooney, Kieran Marmion, and Luke McGrath until informed otherwise.

With only two scrum-halves likely to go to Japan, there are four warm-up matches and a long way to go before Schmidt unveils his final 31-man squad on September 8 and Murray’s rapid rise to a shock selection in Declan Kidney’s 2011 squad at the expense of provincial teammate Tomas O’Leary will serve as a reminder that a coach’s pecking order can quickly change.

“People can come from nowhere as I found out in 2011,” Murray said in Galway yesterday following an open training session at the Sportsground. “That’s probably a bit of motivation for myself and others that have been around for a while, not that you’d take anything for granted, but to push on and be in as good a position as you can come selection time and around the time that squad is announced.

Luckily for me I’ve been involved in two before and, when we meet up on that day, when the 31-man squad is announced, it’s an exciting day, it’s a day full of energy and excitement towards what’s going to happen but there’s also lads who narrowly miss out, who’d trained really well over the summer and they might not be in the form they expect to be or narrowly miss out through selection or injury.

"You’ve got to make sure you put yourself in the best position.”

Kidney handed the rookie scrum-half a Test debut off the bench against France in Bordeaux in August 2011. Murray was one of three scrum-halves named alongside Isaac Boss and Eoin Reddan and by the end of the tournament he was starting number nine.

“I had played with Munster towards the end of that Magners League season, I was announced in that (preliminary) World Cup squad and having chats with the coaches my impression was just to come into the environment and train and just try to pick up as much as habits and knowledge off the senior players at the time,” Murray recalled of that summer.

“I don’t know whether that was the truth or not. I suppose it let me come in with no pressure on my shoulders, just come in and enjoy it and soak up as much as I could. It ended up being a pretty special year.

“I remember talking to Mick O’Driscoll in the airport, I think, when Deccie said I was going to be involved next week (against France) or (defence coach) Les Kiss might have said it to me. Micko was like ‘Jeez, make sure you’re ready for this because they’re not just messing anymore, they’re probably having a serious look at you’.

“That was a bit of a pat on the back and a confidence-booster for me and a very important stepping stone in my career.”

Nor is the importance of Ireland’s four summer warm-ups this pre-season, starting with Italy on August 10, lost on Murray, for coaches and players alike. “On the one hand for us with the four games, there’s going to be new combinations, lads trying to put their hands up for selection, trying to get fitness,trying to get form.

On the other side of it, you want to be playing in your best form or close to it to be able to hopefully get selected for the World Cup squad and kick on into those games because there’s no bedding-in period in Japan, it’s straight into really tough Test matches in tough, tough conditions.

“There’s a split in these August games, Joe and the rest of the lads have to pick their squad and the balance of getting the squad he thinks is going to travel up to match fitness and sharpness so they’re really, really important. That’s why we’re working really, really hard.”