![\"Conor](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/4778723_12_articleinlinemobile_Image_1_1_.jpg\" "\\"Conor")
Conor Murray with his new book \u2018Cloud Nine: My Life in Rugby\u2019,<\/p>\nKeith Earls has joined Conor Murray in questioning the Munster rugby hierarchy, claiming the constant turnover of coaches and game-plans throughout his Munster career post-Declan Kidney was \u201cshocking\u201d.<\/p>\n
Speaking onstage with Murray \u2013 who has joined him now in retirement \u2013 in Thomond Park on Thursday night at the launch of the latter\u2019s new book \u2018Cloud Nine: My Life in Rugby\u2019, Earls seconded some of the criticisms Murray has in his book about the Munster organisation which presided over both Lions and multiple Six Nations championship winners failing to even play in a European Cup final in their respective careers in red.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Conor] spoke how different the game-plans were for Munster. Every game-plan under the sun, we played. We had to adapt to it. That\u2019s one of my biggest regrets with Munster: we only started playing a proper brand of rugby in 2023 [when they won the United Rugby Championship], whereas it was absolutely shocking for my whole career after Declan Kidney.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe brand of rugby under Rassie [Erasmus] was winning but the game Conor missed [the 2017 European Cup semi-final against Saracens] was probably the one game we needed him most. We weren\u2019t let play rugby until we got within 40 metres from Saracens\u2019 [tryline] so that\u2019s 60 metres of the pitch that\u2019s all just kicking. I know Duncan Williams got abuse for that game-plan. It hurt us.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Conor Murray with his new book \u2018Cloud Nine: My Life in Rugby\u2019,<\/p>\n
Earls didn\u2019t get round to commenting on Rob Penney\u2019s touchline-to-touchline game-plan from 2012-2014 which Murray himself in his book remarks was too unrealistic and demanding for a scrumhalf \u2013 \u201cIt was torture because you ended up being a long-distance runner, running over and back and over and back all afternoon\u201d.<\/p>\n
But Earls did question some of the game-plans Johann van Graan went with, like for the 2018 European semi-final against Racing 92 when Munster put a primacy on drop-goals, something they hadn\u2019t gone with before.<\/p>\n
\u201cJohann changed the game-plan for certain big games and we were like, \u2018Well, you don\u2019t believe so the game-plan we\u2019ve been doing all year works?\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just constant turnover. Players, coaches and game-plans. You\u2019d be thinking \u2018Just leave us be, lads, and figure it out.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe went through a rough period under Axel [Foley] but we had just lost a lot of senior players so we were trying to figure out, \u2018Okay, this is our team. Munster were successful because it was ROG\u2019s and Paulie\u2019s team, they were players and had influence and everyone rowed in behind them. Can we do something [player-driven] the same?<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead there was this constant turnover. There were some good head coaches but other staff would have let them down.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He was also critical of the club\u2019s ambition, echoing concerns Murray has raised in his book.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day it was all about winning European Cups for us [Murray and Earls]. You give me five European Cups playing with Toulouse and I couldn\u2019t care. Like Conor said, one European Cup with Munster is all we ever wanted.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I don\u2019t know what the club wanted. Getting players in on the cheap, getting some coaches in on the cheap.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always thought it was like there was some puppeteer somewhere. Like, all our coaches got a bad rap after they left. So it\u2019s the whole organisation you have to look at. Who\u2019s up top, deciding upon and hiring the coaches? Can all the coaches have been wrong? You have to look at the players as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a big thing has to be done in Munster rugby if you\u2019re going to see us in European finals again.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Murray himself meanwhile confirmed to the Examiner that he is retiring.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had left it open-ended at the end of the season to play somewhere because physically I was feeling great. But mentally I feel I\u2019ve done all I can do. I\u2019ve squeezed as much as I can out of it. I\u2019m 36, I\u2019m healthy, have a young family.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only reason I would have stayed playing was if there was somewhere really nice to bring Joanna and our 10-month-old son Alfie to live for the year. I spoke to a lot of clubs and there were offers but none of them suited what we were after.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor example there was one to play in Japan. Everyone seems to think Japan is this great money-making place. The money was fine but I just thought it wouldn\u2019t be fair or right for Joanna and Alfie to be stuck in some apartment in Tokyo away from family while I\u2019m away travelling with the team.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a really long career. We can stop now and move onto the next chapter.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Limerick native and his family will be relocating to Joanna\u2019s hometown of Derry in the coming months while he\u2019s also signed up to do some media work for both the autumn internationals and Six Nations championship.<\/p>\n
\n *Conor Murray will be signing copies of his book \u2018Cloud Nine\u2019, written with Tommy Conlon and published by Reach Sport, this Saturday at 1pm in O\u2019Mahony\u2019s Bookstore, O\u2019Connell Street, Limerick.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Keith Earls has joined Conor Murray in questioning the Munster rugby hierarchy, claiming the constant turnover of coaches…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17729,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-17728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17728","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=17728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}