Conor Murray was looking like a genuine doubt for the 2017 Lions Tour to New Zealand at one stage. It is typical of his fortitude that he returned better than ever.
The Munster and Ireland scrum-half was crowned Rugby Writers’ Player of the Year at an awards ceremony at the Guinness Storehouse on Tuesday evening.
Murray starred for Munster, Ireland and the Lions this year and further added to his reputation as one of the best No.9s in world rugby. The Limerick native picked up a worrying arm injury in the Six Nations and missed several matches before returning at the tail-end of the 2017/18 season and helping Munster to the PRO12 final.
He then excelled on the Lions Tour and scored a crucial try in the Second Test victory over the All Blacks, in Wellington. At the awards ceremony, Murray commented:
“It’s an honour. I got [Rugby Players Ireland] Players’ Player of the Year in May, which was lovely as well. Every award is nice, it’s lovely, isn’t it? I can’t lie about, it’s nice to get these things.
“You have to be realistic about it, you play in a good team and then you get credit but it shows you that there are good squads to be involved in at the moment.”
Murray also had the honour of being on hand to collect the Team of the Year award on behalf of his Munster teammates.
“Actually,” he began, “watching the Axel documentary recently kind of brought it all back about how big a year it actually was.
“I know we got to the PRO12 final and we lost to Saracens in the Champions Cup semi but it was a good year. It’s not silverware but it’s a definitely a big step in the right direction. Looking back on that it was a tough year but I think we did really well and it’s another honour to get an award like that.”
Ireland captain Claire Molloy [Dr. Claire Molloy, to give her her full title] took home the award for Women’s Player of the Year.
She said, “It’s very humbling and it’s a product of the people I’ve been lucky enough to play with and to be coached by over the years, the experiences I’ve taken from them over the years.
“It was a year of mixed results, we had a very successful Six Nations even though we didn’t win at the end, we got to a Grand Slam match which was the first one we’d been in since 2013.
“From a sluggish start to the Six Nations, we went on to beating France at home and faced England in the decider was a great outcome.
“At the World Cup we didn’t quite get the results we wanted, we got two good wins at the start but we didn’t quite perform for the rest of it to achieve where we wanted to go. Hosting a home World Cup was an amazing experience and the crowd, everything that came with it was great to be part of.”
Other accolades on the night went to Cork Con [Club of the Year], Mick Kearney [The Tom Rooney Award] while Colin Patterson was inducted into the Guinness Rugby Writers of Ireland Hall of Fame.
*We’ve got a full, feature interview with Conor Murray coming up on The Hard Yards this week
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