A few weeks ago we brought you the Hendo Hop, and it now looks like the Irish rugby team has its own version: The Murray Bounce.
The box-kick has become one of the more divisive aspects of rugby in the last few years, with of rugby purists fed up of seeing scrum halves hoof the ball into the sky, while many more see it as an effective way to put your opponents under pressure close to the sideline.
One thing is certain though. Our own Conor Murray is pretty good at them.
We did our best David Caruso impressions while watching Ireland’s opening two Six Nations games, and our extensive investigations revealed an absolute bombshell.
Well, not so much a bombshell, but it is a bit quirky.
Murray seems to follow a bit of a routine with his box-kicking, taking three little hops on his standing foot after following through on the ball.
Here’s the kick that first intrigued us.
And when we went into full Woodward and Bernstein mode, we discovered plenty more examples over the last couple of weekends.
When Ireland played France last weekend, Murray was doing it even more. While his little bounces might not be in the same “sixth sense” bracket as Jordan Henderson’s skipping, it does seem to be a vital part of his technique.
And after watching this over and over, we were starting to find it seriously, seriously funny.
He just looks so happy with it, bouncing up and down. Either that, or he has something stuck in his boot.
And it’s not just box-kicks. Murray hit a snap clearance just after the Jamie Heaslip – Pascal Pape incident on Saturday, and still found the time to take three little bounces.
There was time for one last special bounce-kick from him against France. I do the same thing myself when I stand on an upturned plug at home.
Make sure you keep an eye out for the Murray Bounce next week against England. Your country is depending on you. We’ll make sure to get to the bottom of this.
