{"id":410594,"date":"2026-01-13T18:56:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T18:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/410594\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T18:56:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T18:56:08","slug":"ulster-rugby-head-coach-richie-murphy-wants-to-sign-new-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/410594\/","title":{"rendered":"Ulster Rugby: Head coach Richie Murphy wants to sign new deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Richie Murphy says he would like to extend his stay as Ulster head coach into next season. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Former Ireland Under-20s boss Murphy replaced Dan McFarland in March 2024 and his contract runs out at the end of the season. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">After a disappointing 2024-25 campaign, Ulster have been rejuvenated under Murphy this season, winning six out of eight matches in the United Rugby Championship table and qualifying for the knockout stages of the Challenge Cup with a game to spare.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">With that progress, the 51-year-old joked he would have liked a new contract to be sorted &#8220;yesterday&#8221;, and discussions are taking place with the Irish province.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We&#8217;re hoping that will be the case,&#8221; Murphy told BBC Sport NI about a new deal to stay in Belfast.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;These things are part of the process and Ulster are working through that at the moment.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Murphy said he was pleased with his coaching team, of Mark Sexton, Jimmy Duffy, Willie Faloon and Dan Soper and the set-up has &#8220;formed up really well&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We&#8217;re working really well together and the results are starting to show, so let&#8217;s hope that builds forward for a couple of years,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;There&#8217;s the stability for the players and knowing who they are dealing with, and being clear around how we&#8217;re really trying to play.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Richie Murphy says he would like to extend his stay as Ulster head coach into next season. Former&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410595,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-410594","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}