TODAYS HERALD REPORTS

KEVIN FERRIE, Chief Rugby Writer May 25 2009
Saturday morning's interview was interrupted by the arrival of one of Euan Murray's friends at the front door. Had the international prop pointed him in the direction of the kettle, I asked, hoping he would still have time to chat.

"I don't have a kettle yet. I've pointed him in the direction of a pot and the only mug in the house," chuckled the 28-year-old. Admittedly, the image of prop forwards is that they are among the sporting world's most basic creatures, but some 18 months after he moved to Northampton Saints this seemed a bit remiss.

"I've just moved into a new house here," he explained. "I rented when I first moved to Northampton . . . didn't know if I was going to stay. Now that I've signed a new three-year deal, I've bought a home. I'm settling into middle England."

Again there's that slightly malevolent chuckle, stopped in its tracks by being asked if the next thing to change will be his Scottish accent. "Never! If anything I deliberately exaggerate it."

In that regard there is a distinct difference with the fellow Saint he has replaced as the first name not only in the Scotland front-row but on the team-sheet. In fairness, Tom Smith's anglified tones owe more to his schooling in Rannoch than to his time spent in the English Midlands, but it was the two-time British & Irish Lions tourist who showed Murray the route to the very top by leaving Glasgow to join the Saints, in Smith's case via Brive.

Murray played for the senior national side when Frank Hadden took over as coach in 2005 for the non-cap match against the Barbarians, also Scotland's first after Smith had quit international rugby on missing out on selection for that summer's Lions tour.

The final handover of the baton took place on Friday night, when Murray played a full 80 minutes in Saints' European Challenge Cup final win over Bourgoin, while Smith came on in the dying stages to make his last competitive appearance.

There are similarities. Both are surprisingly soft-spoken; both think carefully before every utterance, adding to their personal auras through the silences that generates; both are stoic rather than overtly aggressive figures, whose resoluteness wears the opposition down; both are hugely respected.

As well as Murray's well documented rediscovery of his faith and Smith's epilepsy, there are also further differences. At close to 19 stones of solid muscle the younger man boasts huge physical advantages over his predecessor who, on the other side of the front-row, underwent relentless torture when relying on strength of mind to overcome much bulkier opponents.

Where Smith survived against the Springboks to help the Lions to their fabled Test series win in 1997, Murray has the attributes to impose himself on those traditionally regarded as the game's most feared scrummagers.

"They're the best in the world the South Africans, the biggest, strongest guys around. This has always been a dream for me, because the first time I really noticed the Lions was in '97," said Murray.

Now he has survived it, Friday night's 15-3 (all kicks) win over Bourgoin which earned the Saints both silverware and a place in next season's Heineken Cup, was the perfect preparation.

"It was a good contest," was Murray's typically understated assessment, before he added: "It got quite emotional at some stages. It just showed the desire the teams had. There was a lot of passion on the field, but it was just about us being able to keep the ball and keep putting pressure on them."

All of which is a euphemistic description of a match which started towsy and turned viciously nasty as the Saints gradually ground the French side down. Well suited as Murray was to that, it was dangerous, considering the attrition rate that has already forced four changes to the Lions squad since it was originally named.

"They seem to have been dropping like flies, unfortunately" said Murray. "However, you can't go onto a rugby pitch thinking about the possibility of being injured, but now at last I can really look forward to the Lions."

That has already been a life changing experience, to the extent that he has now been recruited as an unlikely clothes horse, the antithesis of a size zero model when selected as the Scottish representative helping Marks & Spencer show off their Lions range.

"It's fair to say there won't be too many suits sold in my dimensions,"

he admitted. "I don't get many clothes off the peg."

Taking on such projects is something to which few Scottish rugby players are exposed, but Murray could be the key to deciding whether he and his team-mates reach a new level of stardom in the weeks ahead. If so, more wild celebrations like last Friday night's can be expected.

"I had a cider with the lads on the bus, but I always drive when I go out, so I went to the after dinner party and then on to a 24-hour MacDonald's," Murray revealed. "I would rather have gone to KFC, but team-mate Nacho Lobbe insisted."

He has had his moments in the past, but if that is what this greatest of modern examples of muscular Christianity now thinks of as relaxing his regime the Springboks have real cause for concern.

This article was posted on 25-May-2009, 07:24 by Hugh Barrow.