SIX NATION'S CHAMPIONSHIP:TIMING IS everything. One player tells the story about a move run at training last Tuesday which featured Geordan Murphy for the first time. "He'd never run the move before but, as usual with Geordie, his timing was perfect."
Similarly, Murphy could scarcely have better timed his first full 80 minutes for five months in Leicester’s win over Gloucester last Saturday, complete with try. Rob Kearney’s misfortune on the treacherous Stade de France turf opened a window at fullback which Murphy, after two cameos off the bench totalling 32 minutes in the previous fortnight, helped fill in the nick of time.
Later last Tuesday, he was one of those chosen to come down to the media room, smiling and chatting effortlessly through the full round; print media, television and radio, and finishing long after the other players.
Usually good-humoured in any event, his delight at being back was palpable. “Yeah, someone said to me yesterday, ‘we seem to say that to you a lot’,” he recounts, laughing. “I’m like a yo-yo – in, out, dropped, injured, back in, out, played well, dropped . . .”
He’s possibly made more comebacks than Mick Galwey, who proudly claims the record for being the most dropped player at 15 times? “Possibly, yeah,” Murphy admits, still laughing. “Jeez, that’s some stat. I’d love to check it, see how many times I’ve been in and out.”
Well, between his early days in and out of the side, jousting with Girvan Dempsey, injuries and the vagaries of Eddie O’Sullivan – with whom the relationship clearly soured in latter years – come Murphy’s 65th cap today one could count this as the 15th time he has been “recalled”.
Amid shades of the old London Irish ex-pats, Murphy is unique in the professional era in that he has been an Irishman abroad in all that time, and a one-club man.
“It’s a weird one. When I went over there – because I didn’t really have a shot over here – I suppose I’ve always felt a bit of loyalty as a result of that and I’ve pretty much agreed to stay on there for another three years, and that should pretty much see me out. I’m kind of joking that ‘ah no, I’ve another few years after that and I want to equal Mike Catt’s record of playing in the Premiership at 38/39’. Realistically you don’t know but it’s nice to be able to say that (a one-club man), especially in this professional age when very few players from anywhere finish in one place.”
Despite the comings and goings, slotting back in seamlessly has never been a problem. The more slagging, the better the signs really, and even John Hayes joins in. “The Bull would always say (to me) ‘Go way you and go home to England’. He makes a big deal about it. The boys would say ‘He’s going home to Naas’. And he’d say ‘No, he’s not from Naas, he’s from England’. So I get a kick out of that.”
Equally, he, and the rest of the players, are revelling in the attention being heaped upon the Quiet One for once. “John has obviously been banging on all week about his 100 caps. He won’t shut up about it, to be quite honest with you. He demanded a round of applause the other night when he walked into a meeting. It was pretty embarrassing but I’m not really going to say too much to him because he’s a lot bigger than me.”
This week you’d imagine Murphy’s presence might be especially relevant as an insight into the Leicester mentality, but he doesn’t see it that way and, besides, just because Martin Johnson, John Wells and Graham Rowntree are involved in the English management, he believes the Leicester influence is still overstated.
Murphy once asked Johnson to speak at the annual Naas club dinner. Not that warmly received to begin with, the 500 or so guests made their views clear after Johnson made passing reference to his infamous stand-off over the red carpet when President Mary McAleese was introduced to the two teams before kick-off in the 2003 Grand Slam shoot-out. But by the end, when he had also explained his version of events amid a well constructed and entertaining speech, they gave him a standing ovation.
Agreeing that Johnson has a fairly powerful personality, Murphy smiles when considering the contrast in his public and private profile : “He’s a really good guy. You meet so many people and he has a face that people do like to hate, and especially over here after his red carpet incident. But when you get to know him he’s a really nice guy, he’s a family man, he’s got a couple of kids and he’s more than happy to do his own thing and he’s more than happy just chilling out.
“He always said when he was playing that he just wanted a simple, easy life, but he has a powerful personality. I spoke to a lot of the English guys and he’s given some very stirring and very emotional team talks in the last couple of weeks and the English guys said it got them really fired up. And I’m sure it will be no different this Saturday.”
Murphy’s last start was in November 2008 against Argentina, though his last involvement will forever remain one of the most iconic images in the history of Irish rugby. It must have been a frustrating campaign for Murphy given he had such a peripheral role, though one made more enjoyable by the atmosphere within the squad, their winning run and, he says, the communication with the management.
After brief appearances in three games, Murphy played the last 15 in Cardiff, and the sight of him catching the ball from Stephen Jones’s penalty beside the posts at the Millennium Stand, gleefully running towards the corner and hoofing the ball high into the stands is liable to be repeated decades from now.
Surprisingly, he admits he’s never seen footage of those closing Slam moments in Cardiff. “I remember it all,” he says. “I remember every second of it from when the penalty was given. As soon as I touched it down the game was over but then I felt the need to welly it into row Z just out of pure excitement. About 30 seconds later I was thinking: ‘what did I do that for?’ ”
It’s also good to know that someone who began playing for Ireland as far back as 2000, making a classy two-try debut in the record 83-3 win over the USA, whose brilliance played such a central part in taking Ireland to that aforementioned Grand Slam shoot-out and many other days besides, could be part of something so special.
In particular, Murphy was flying and set to be a major star at the 2003 World Cup until cruelly breaking his leg in the final warm-up game in Murrayfield less than 24 hours before he would have been one of the first names in the squad. Throw in his treatment by O’Sullivan at the 2007 World Cup and clearly the 2011 World Cup would be a box he’d like to tick.
“Definitely. It’s probably one of the things I’ve been most disappointed about. I was in great form going into the 2003 World Cup and broke my leg, and that was another five-monther, which was pretty tough to take. And then the 2007 one was very disappointing as well in that it wasn’t enjoyable generally and I didn’t see much field time until I got one start against Argentina (scoring a try).
“I got a couple of minutes against Namibia in which I don’t think I even touched the ball. Bench against Georgia, not on, then dropped for the French game and then a start against Argentina,” he recalls, chuckling himself at the oddity of it.
“It was a disappointing World Cup for all concerned. This is pretty much the guts of the same team but it just didn’t happen for us for whatever reason. So that’s what I’m kind of hanging around for. That is my goal, to try to get myself selected for the World Cup. I’m just focusing on getting to that World Cup and then we’ll see after that.”
Another step towards that ambition arrives today. Told he’d be able to take contact 16 weeks after his shoulder operation, he immediately calculated this timetable would take him up to the first week of the Six Nations, and therefore targeted being involved, in some way, in the last two games against Wales and Scotland. This is ahead of schedule.
If Murphy was a 22-year-old with a handful of caps and only one full 80 minutes in five months of rugby, then today would be a mite more demanding for him, but he has the experience that comes with 63 caps and he’s probably played at Twickenham more than any Irishman in the professional era.
“You’d hope so. It’s very unfortunate for Rob, and it’s a big ask. I’m more than happy to do it and I’m excited about it in that I’ve been there, and done it before. If it’s a fast game then the engines will slow and the lungs will blow, but the way I’m looking at it is I’ve just got to give it everything and if I have to get peeled off the pitch then I have to be peeled off.”
Welcome back Geordan. Again.
LIFE OUTSIDE RUGBY
“Leicester’s quite a small place and that’s probably one of the reasons that the guys do well. The team tends to stick together a lot.
“In the past few years – it sounds very boring – some of the guys have got big into cooking. Not me, I’m terrible. I live on my own so I can survive.
But these guys cook up some really good meals so there have been meals around at the guys’ houses about two nights a week.
“I’m a big fan of golf and I like to get a round in on a buggy in midweek, or on a Sunday. My official handicap in Naas is about 14 but when we play with the guys I play off nine; we don’t enter competitions.
“That’s pretty much it; a cinema-goer; a few books.
“I’m reading a golf book at the moment.
“Ollie Wilson, the Ryder Cup golfer, is a mate of mine and he gave me a small book called Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect, with a forward by Darren Clarke.
“It’s kind of a self-help book for golfers, it’s about the psychology of top golfers. It’s good.”
