Conor Murray is up at Sandyford’s RAW gym when he gets asked about his two tries against New Zealand.
He says nothing but raises three fingers and smiles.
Three tries in six games, and a penalty too. Murray seems to up his game when he faces the All Blacks.
Three of his best ever games have come against New Zealand – Christchurch [2012], Dublin [2013] and Chicago [2016]. Three of his best ever games and three of Ireland’s most stirring performances in the past decade, and they still lost two of them.
That’s how bloody good New Zealand are.
Still, Murray is one of 14 members of the 2017 British & Irish Lions squad to have defeated the world champion Kiwis. He is one of eight Ireland players in the squad to have achieved that feat at Soldier Field, last November.
He knows why Ireland won, 40 points to 29, and he is happy to share the information.
Ireland went out that day, on November 5, and took it to the All Blacks. They did not an early George Moala try waiver their beliefs and they let rip. They gave it a rattle and ran in five tries against a team that were on an 18-Test winning streak.
“Yeah, that’s it,” says Murray. “You’ve got to go out there and attack and keep playing.
“I can only speak from my experience but in 2013 we stopped playing in the second half and they didn’t necessarily do anything special in the last few seconds. They just held on to the ball, made yards and made yards and eventually scored and converted to win.
“That was tough to take but we drew on that when we played them in Chicago, and we said to each other that we have to keep going. When they scored their three tries in the second half, we knew that we had to go out and attack them and score more points ourselves, which we thankfully managed to do.
“Mentally, we knew we had to where before we would have maybe tried to scrape a win or hold out to see out the game, and be quite nervous about it. You can’t be. You’ve got to risk certain things. You’ve got to play your best rugby to beat the best team in the world.”
Murray mentions the six English players that did for the ABs at Twickenham, in 2012, and notes that Andy Farrell [Lions defence coach] played a key role in both of their losses against northern hemisphere opposition.
“Before it was announced,” he said, “everyone was going on about how competitive it was going to be to make the squad. There are really good players missing out and that just shows you how good this squad is.
“It’s really exciting and hopefully we can just gel really well, play really well, execute the game-plan we’re given and just play really good rugby. It could be really special but it is going to be the ultimate test. It really is.”
As for his ability to somehow up his game against the reigning world champions, Murray puts his performances down to good fortune and determination. He said:
“Definitely when you play the best teams – and with Aaron Smith and TJ Perenara they’re awesome – you just want to play well against them. You want to compete against them and see where you rank or how you perform against them.
“That’s always a thing for me and, yeah, for bigger occasions you probably get a little more from yourself. That’s not to say that you shy away and you don’t play your best in club games, but on big occasions you look to play that bit better or you’re even more determined to play well.”
*Murray was on hand to help relaunch MaxiMuscle in Ireland with their ‘Home of Gains’ campaign. Their new range of protein bars are designed for anyone looking to quickly increase their protein consumption.
