Murray shows mental strength to go with the physical

NO LESS than his physical strength, Conor Murray has mental strength as well

NO LESS than his physical strength, Conor Murray has mental strength as well. After his faux pas in Paris last week, it was encouraging to see the Ireland scrumhalf deservedly earn the man-of-the-match award with a lively and assured display.

Quick to the breakdown and in moving the ball away, his muscularity around the fringes and excellent box kicking were augmented by Munster’s breakthrough try.

If he had suffered at all during the week or felt vindicated in any way he didn’t show it. “It’s satisfying, yeah. It was disappointing last week but you can’t afford to be down about it.

“The team comes first, all about the team getting out of the pool and you just have to do your part, hopefully I did that today.”

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As for the bonus point, he did admit: “It’s a huge confidence-booster, especially after last week’s disappointment, being able to wipe that from our memory – and a huge confidence-booster going into the Saracens game after they got a bonus point [against Edinburgh a week ago]. I suppose we got to the 70th minute and got a break and the crowd came to life at that stage and gave us the lift we needed.

“We stuck to the game plan and it worked in the end. You don’t really worry about them, we had to stick to our plan, we felt we weren’t really under threat and could concentrate on our attack.”

Nor was there any heightened pressure on Munster after last week’s defeat to Racing. “Not at all. Munster have lost the first group game before and got out of the group, we’re just concentrating on that. It was difficult last week with Racing, we did find it difficult to find space; this week myself and Ian [Keatley] sat down and looked at ways to put Edinburgh under pressure.”

“Edinburgh were spreading out of their defensive line so maybe we went up the middle more in the second half, maybe we went up ‘the guts’ a bit more.

“We used our maul a lot more in the second half, went up through the middle.

“If there’s space in the middle you have to take it. Our aim is to be a bit wider this year but there’s variety to our game as well.”

Michael Bradley admitted he had been embarrassed by last week’s 45-0 defeat to Saracens and conceded: “Embarrassed again, I’m afraid.”

The Edinburgh coach added: “We had good enough players out there. Munster play a different style to Sarries, they compete a lot more at the breakdown. They just dominated us there. Tim Visser might not have got a pass in this match anyway because of the way Munster went about their business and obviously the way we went about ours.”

As the ERC negotiations continue regarding a new Accord, the Scottish and Italian sides are hardly improving their bargaining power. Their combined match haul of points from four games played is zero.

Looking ahead to his native province’s meetings with Saracens, Bradley said: “They are two very good sides . . . Sarries are very competent at what they do, very organised. They won’t change.

“They might lose the match but they won’t lose it by much, if that makes sense to you. They’ll be confident against Munster as well.”

Gerry Thornley

Gerry Thornley

Gerry Thornley is Rugby Correspondent of The Irish Times