{"id":171408,"date":"2025-12-02T17:56:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T17:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/171408\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T17:56:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T17:56:09","slug":"it-started-with-a-salad-a-limerick-rugby-legends-unlikely-path-to-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/171408\/","title":{"rendered":"It started with a salad: A Limerick rugby legend&#8217;s unlikely path to love"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A WELL-KNOWN <a href=\"https:\/\/www.limerickleader.ie\/section\/131\/news\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Limerick<\/a> rugby star has revealed how an unexpected Instagram comment on a simple salad photo sparked the beginning of a now-happy marriage.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to Ryan Tubridy on The Bookshelf with Ryan Tubridy podcast, Conor Murray recounted the story of his first interaction with his now wife, Joanna Cooper.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Murray told Ryan that he had been following Joanna for a few months on Instagram when he saw Joanna had posted a photo of a salad and, feeling confident, he replied to it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>READ MORE:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.limerickleader.ie\/news\/arts---entertainment\/1953879\/life-s-too-short-limerick-man-s-campaign-to-sing-with-michael-buble-at-thomond-park.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">&#8216;Life&#8217;s too short&#8217; &#8211; Limerick man&#8217;s campaign to sing with Michael Bubl\u00e9 at Thomond Park<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou probably think you\u2019re unstoppable in those moments,\u201d he laughed as he explained she was not too impressed with his approach.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Still, the Limerick native persisted. Murray told Tubridy that he continued messaging Cooper after the initial attempt, even going so far as to pretend he had a photoshoot with Adidas in London so he could ask her out on a date.<\/p>\n<p>During the interview, Murray also reflected on the disappointment of losing a World Cup quarter-final, his young family\u2019s upcoming move to Derry, and the public reaction to the release of his autobiography, Cloud Nine: My Life in Rugby.<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A WELL-KNOWN Limerick rugby star has revealed how an unexpected Instagram comment on a simple salad photo sparked&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171409,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[13919,61,542,60,1396,6084,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-171408","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-conor-murray","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-instagram","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-limerick","13":"tag-ryan-tubridy","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}