“He found out Tuesday evening and wasn’t around Wednesday,” said Craig Casey about Conor Murray after Ireland had beaten France.
The life-altering news that his father, Gerry, had been involved in a serious road accident allowed Ireland’s Murray plenty of time for all-consuming reflection and reassessments until Saturday’s Six Nations match.
As Murray sought to prepare, Gerry was being treated for “serious injuries” in Cork University Hospital after he was involved in a traffic collision near his home in Co Limerick.
Murray’s preparation for the game against France was as far from the ideal as could be imagined. Concerns more fundamentally important than a rugby match to his life and that of his family were taking place on the other side of the island. Yet, he chose to challenge himself to frame a mindset that, for at least several hours, displaced those matters.
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That Murray was able to play the game, let alone put in the performance that he did, with such an overarching personal issue to manage may go down as one of the Irish scrumhalf’s greatest individual performances.
What Murray also accomplished, with his family’s blessing, was to express the personality of the Irish team, reveal just what it is that Andy Farrell has built, what commitment the players have avowed and the importance they place on the spirit of ‘us’ over any concept of ‘I’.
People often talk about strength of mind without really understanding what it means. Getting into a mental state where an athlete is appropriately focused is a hugely challenging skill.
Not all can do it. Nick Kyrios, the Australian tennis player, struggles with it every time he plays. Not everyone can put the tools they need into the mental reservation and go out clear-minded to excel at international rugby against one of the best teams in the world.
That is what Murray was able to accomplish. He has been doing it for his entire career, filtering out distractions, negative personal opinions and now for the first time significant personal trauma.
“Me and Conor grew up together through the academy, sub-academy, lived together, kind of broke through the same era with Munster,” said Dave Kilcoyne.
“He’d be one of my best friends and it just shows the resilience in the man to play the way he did in the circumstances that he has going on in his personal life. You wouldn’t wish it on anyone. But he came in and he was just himself.
“Faz [Andy Farrell] addressed it after the win, just how impressed he was with his [Murray’s] character, you know. It really tests someone’s character to be able to play in an international game like that at that capacity and to play like that when he has such a tough home situation going on. Full credit to Conor Murray.”
It has always been important for athletes to think about what they are doing in a current setting rather than how they are feeling, particularly about something outside of the competition and outside of their control.
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The phrase, “performing in a bubble” usually refers to an athlete’s ability to block out distractions and focus on their game. It is a trained ability to ignore the outside chatter that clutters the mental side of the game and is an obstacle to performance.
The very extreme end of that mental skill was what Murray implemented prior to the match and while he was on the pitch against Antoine Dupont, the toughest opponent he will face this year.
“Incredible from Mur to be honest,” added Craig Casey. “It was a very tough week for him and the family and all week we’ve been thinking about Gerry, Barbara, all the family. It’s a credit to Mur.
“He’s someone I’ve looked up to for years and, obviously being behind him at Munster, I’ve learned a lot off him. Again, I learned a lot from him this week as well, about mental toughness and mental resilience. He’s a credit to his family the way he showed up today and a credit to this team.”
For Farrell too, Murray has proven something more than being a font of experience with more than 100 Irish caps. For a day in Dublin, he lived and performed with a preposterous conceit, that everything was okay. What is worth locking away is that when he was asked, he was able to stand up and honour his ability and his team.
