I GOT IT ON INSTASLAM
Murray reveals his shock at social media abuse after Ireland’s Six Nations clean sweep hopes disappeared at Twickenham
CONOR MURRAY was shocked at the level of social media abuse aimed at him after Ireland’s Six Nations loss to England.
Murray has been there and done it all over 14 years as a professional for Munster and Ireland.
But that didn’t insulate him from the vitriol that followed that Twickenham reversal in round four of the championship.
The 34-year-old, who this week signed a new one-year deal with the province, was the focal point for the abuse after the
23-22 defeat.
In particular, his decision to kick to touch with 90 seconds remaining as Ireland tried to hold on to a two-point lead was seized upon by the trolls.
From the subsequent lineout England’s Marcus Smith, with penalty advantage, slotted the winning drop goal. A few days later, Ireland head coach Andy Farrell (above) hit out at the abuse that followed while defence coach Simon Easterby confirmed that Murray’s kick was a call made from the coaches’ box.
“That was a weird one, yeah, there’s no hiding from the abuse you get,” said Murray ahead of Munster’s Champions Cup last 16 clash at Northampton Saints.
“You can’t get away from it but that clip didn’t even come up in the review, that’s how irrelevant it was. 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 the abuse, 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.”
Murray opened his Instagram account after the game – his 123rd for his country – and realised that he was being blamed for the defeat that ended Ireland’s back-to-back Grand Slam hopes. The men in green did go on to win successive Six Nations titles, Murray’s fifth in total.
“I just looked at a couple,” he said. “I looked at my phone and it just flooded up with messages. It was just, ‘F***ing hell’ and then I just deleted all at the bottom.
“There was no point. If you read it all, some of it’s going to seep into you. It was just abuse really. Just, ‘What the f*** are you doing kicking the ball away’.
“People who ‘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, ‘Fair enough’, you could see the reason for it.
“You can’t not be aware of it, that’s the thing in this day and age, you can’t not see it. Whether you read it all is up to the player but I just saw enough to go, ‘No, I’m gone’.”
Murray was reminded of Owen Farrell’s decision to step away from the England set-up following the World Cup after receiving tonnes of abuse. The Garryowen man added: “That came into my mind after that England week. It was very brief but I thought, ‘What’s the point here if you can’t win?’.
“Some of the messages aren’t just aimed at you, they’re aimed at your family and stuff and you’re like, ‘Who’s writing these?’.”
The scrum-half says nobody has ever dished out abuse to his face.
He added: “No, they don’t and that’s unfortunately the world we live in – a lot of those messages were probably from profiles with fake pictures.
“It’s a tough part of being a professional athlete. You can report it but I never have.
You just delete all of it.”