It was one of the scarier moment in a horror movie that unfolded before our eyes in Twickenham yesterday. The sight of Ireland's first choice scrumhalf - and one of our legitimate world class players prone on the ground after mis-timing a tackle on a rampant England side.
Credit must go to referee Nigel Owens for stopping the game immediately for the obvious out-cold Murray, and to Sean O'Brien for his quickest reactions of the day to get Murray into the recovery position.
After the game though, Joe Schmidt was able to play down fears of any long-lasting effects of one of his two scrumhalves:
Conor is good. He went through all the head injury assessments successfully. But because he was knocked down, it was pertinent to leave him off the pitch so he sat it out.
In layman's terms, if that was a more serious game - Murray had passed the protocols and would have been allowed back onto the pitch. Which is a little worrying for the protocols given the obvious nature of how out-cold he was - but the right decision was made on the day.
Schmidt also had positive news on the departures of Johnny Sexton and Simon Zebo, saying that precaution was used more than anything serious - whilst lamenting the fact that players had to be pulled out of position for the second week in a row:
Johnny and Simon were both cramping up and that’s why they were replaced. If it had not been prior to the World Cuup they could have stayed on.
But if you do that then there’s an increased risk that they would do a bit of a muscle injury if cramping up. It was not ideal to have Chris Henry on the wing and Ian Madigan at full-back. It just meant it was pretty awkward to make those replacements and for a second week in a row ended up with guys out of position.
Just some small silver lining positives for Ireland coming out of that game.
[Sunday Times (€)]
See Also: Ireland Set For Quite A Drop In World Rugby Rankings
See Also: Ireland Player Ratings: Did Anyone Play Well In Ireland's Worst Performance In The Schmidt Era?
Picture credit: Matt Browne / SPORTSFILE
