CONOR MURRAY has been held in very high regard by Ireland and Munster fans over the years but in sport abuse is never far away.
The veteran scrum-half recently put pen to paper on a new contract that keeps him at Munster for another year.
Making the decision to stay on wasn’t straight forward as the option to walk away after a successful career could be tempting.
However, Murray committed to fighting for a place in the squad and is willing to put up with some social media backlash for another while.
The 34-year-old said: “The outside is very different from the inside in terms of how coaches see you or value you.
“That’s an easy narrative on the outside: ‘It’s a World Cup cycle and that age profile player is gone now . . .’ – if you’re producing and are still an asset to the team or squad, then you keep going.
“I want to play rugby for as long as I can, it’s an unbelievable job and I’ve been really lucky to get to this age and still be feeling good and still be contributing to two squads.
“You just ignore it. The longer you’re around the more s*** you hear from the outside, excuse my language.
“You really learn what’s important and what opinions matter. The longer you’re around, the more stuff you hear that’s complete nonsense and an easy narrative to go by.
“What matters is the conversations you have with your coaches, your fellow players and your family – they were a big part of it as well. Loads of things.
“Outside noise is very irrelevant. Especially the last few years, you realise what’s true really.”
The height of recent abuse came Murray’s way after Ireland’s Six Nations defeat at Twickenham.
England ended Ireland’s dreams of back-to-back Grand Slams when a late drop goal sealed Andy Farrell and co’s fate.
Murray box-kicked the ball back to English possession in the dying minutes of the clash leading to tidal waves of abuse online.
This surprised the Munster man as he explained how the decision was just standard procedure when you know the game.
STRANGE STUFF
He continued: “That was a weird one, yeah. There’s no hiding from the abuse you get.
“You can’t get away from it but that clip didn’t even come up in the review, that’s how irrelevant it was.
“Genuinely, we’ve been around long enough to know how long you can hold on to the ball in your own ’22’, that was the right call; we’d do it again, it was what happened after.
“Chatting to Andy, we had a giggle about it, it was wild. Unfortunately, that’s just the way the world is. But I was taken aback by it, the level of messages coming into my phone.
“Just abuse, really, just: ‘What the f*** are you doing kicking the ball away?’. People who, in fairness, ‘support’ Ireland and are frustrated that we lost and they’re just looking for some way to vent and they see they can message you on Instagram.
“It was mad, but if I’d made a mistake or missed a tackle you’d think, not fair enough, but you could see the reason for it.
“But, genuinely, that didn’t come up in the review.”