Gerry Thornley talks to a player who thought he had played his last game for the Lions against Auckland on Tuesday but this morning lines out at fullback for the final Test

Geordan Murphy has had a curious old tour. He hit the ground running better than most with a two-try performance rich in his customary swagger against Taranaki but, as the most regular dirt-tracker on tour, since then his confidence and ambition appear to have waned. Whereupon he finds himself in the team for the third Test.

Of all the players in the Lions playing party, you wouldn't have expected Murphy to be the Trojan workhorse. Martin Corry yes, but Murphy no. Yet no one will have started more matches than the Leicester and Ireland fullback, today's third Test being his seventh start if one includes the pre-tour draw with Argentina at the Millennium Stadium.

Remarkably too, he went into the third Test with an unbeaten record, compared to others such as Paul O'Connell, who went into the Auckland denouement on the back of three successive defeats. He speaks most fondly of the Taranaki game ("It was free-flowing and to get a couple of tries was good") but Murphy was unhinged by a couple of blips in the win over Otago. "I thought I made a couple of mistakes and that was a bit of a bummer."

Come the week of the first Test, he was one of the 22 who had been consigned to the Southland game and had been ruled out of Test consideration beforehand by Clive Woodward. Whether coincidentally or not, Murphy looked subdued and off-colour. He was even replaced for the only time.

He was decidedly unlucky at that juncture to miss out on the 22 to, say Jason Robinson, if form had been a criterion. But the damage to his self-belief had apparently been done.

A failure to catch a couple of high balls (normally a virtue) against Otago seemed to rattle him, and against Southland he even dropped a couple of take-and-gives that would probably have led to tries and would be meat and drink to him. "A tough game," he recalls. "Happy enough."

Even in the try feast against Manawatu, he didn't really dip his bread, Shane Williams jumping into the Test team with five tries and then parachuting out again.

"A difficult game to get into, everything kinda went right for us," Murphy recalls, again saying it was a lot of fun to play in. By the time of the Auckland game last Tuesday he was arguably at his most subdued. Had there been a moment when he'd given up hope, when he felt Woodward had effectively said thanks but no thanks?

"I never really thought I'd shown everything I had. You never obviously have the perfect game and you always make mistakes or do things you're not happy with. There were possibly a couple of stages last week when I thought, 'mmm, time's running out'."

"Going into the Auckland game on Tuesday (I thought) this is realistically my last game in a Lions shirt. I went out just to enjoy it. I didn't go out to try and do anything special against Auckland, I just went out to do my part for the team and get the win against Auckland.

"When I walked around the field I clapped the fans and thanked them. As far as I was concerned that was me done in a red shirt. It's funny the way it works out. Then afterwards there were a couple of injuries and we'd see what would happen."

A rumoured night-time conversation with a supporter would, if remotely true, suggest he didn't exactly feel wanted or needed. Certainly he'd be entitled to feel he's arrived as something of an afterthought, when the tours of most other favoured players have hit the ground through form or injury. Not that he'd let on, of course.

While maintaining he's enjoyed playing in the midweek time, his response to the notion that he had become frustrated perhaps betrayed a waning self-confidence as well.

"I don't know if frustration is the right word. I suppose disappointment, but there's nothing you can do. I thought I was playing alright and I was enjoying my rugby, and then didn't get selected . . . I have no control whatsoever over selection and I wouldn't have it any other way. I'd hate to be a manager or a selector trying to pick the right combinations, and the important thing for me was not letting myself down, not having a shocker so that I could literally be ruled out, 'well, clearly he's not up to it'.

"So I was just trying to have fun, enjoy myself, play some good rugby and then let everything else look after itself. The other guys in the back three were obviously doing pretty well and still ahead of me in the pecking order. So I just had to keep pushing and I got in there at the end, so I'm happy."

You wonder if the apparent mindset of first avoiding mistakes rather than making things happen is ideal for him. He maintains it's a combination of avoiding errors and playing creatively, which he admits is what he enjoys most. Which has been paramount in the eyes of the management?

"It's a tough question. I'm not sure entirely what they're thinking so it's probably rude of me to say what I imagine they're thinking. I've no idea really, " he says, uncomfortably.

At his best Murphy would be just what the Lions needed to galvanise their sterile back play in the Tests. Asked if they needed more ambition, Murphy had to diplomatically temper what would be his instincts.

"Yeah, possibly. You can beat the All Blacks by playing a conservative game. It's one of those things. If they step up to the plate and bring their A game that's going to be a little bit more difficult and probably we are going to go out there and score a few tries. So it's one of those things you have to read and play, depending on the conditions and what team we're facing."