OUT-HALF JACK Murphy says he decided to join Ulster before his father, former Ireland U20s head coach Richie Murphy, took charge of the northern province on a full-time basis.
The younger Murphy will move north from Leinster during the off-season having initially turned down the opportunity to join Ulster’s academy last year, when he preferred instead to work his way into the Ireland U20s reckoning from a position of stability in his native province.
But Murphy, who is expected to line out for Ireland in their U20 World Cup opener against Italy on 29 June, explained that the decision to join Ulster when he returns from South Africa later this summer was a straightforward one irrespective of the man in command.
“Last year, I was offered a go up to Ulster, to the academy, but I just thought it was best if I had one more year in the sub academy in Leinster and focus on my 20s.
“Then, this year, it came up again and it was an opportunity for me. At the minute, there are a lot of top-quality out-halves Leinster have and I kind of struggled to see where I was going to fit in, where I was going to play in the next few years.
“I just thought that there was a good opportunity in Ulster in the out-half position to try and push for the out-half (role) over the next few years.
“I kind of had the decision made in my head before Richie had ended up in Ulster,” Murphy said, referring to his father. “It was a pretty easy decision for me.”
Murphy’s call to move north was equally unaffected by the fact that his Leinster and Ireland U20 teammates Sam Berman and Wilhelm de Klerk will also join his father’s charges for the 2024/25 season — although he admits it doesn’t hurt that he will be able to share the experience with two of his close friends.
Berman and De Klerk’s respective journeys north present one complication, however: whether Murphy will rent a house with them or live with his parents.
“I think my mum and dad are looking at a couple of places to stay so I’ll have to make that decision soon enough,” Murphy says.
“I’m very close with Sam and Willie. I’ve played with them for a long time. It’s nice to know that you have two lads going up with you that you have grown up playing with. Hopefully, it’ll be easy for us to settle in quickly and enjoy our time up there.”
As for where Murphy sees himself in the Ulster pecking order at out-half, he smiles: “I don’t really know until I get up there”.
“Aidan Morgan is coming in, he’s a good player, which is brilliant. They have Jake Flannery as well, who played a lot this year. They are really good players.
“There are less out-halves than there are in Leinster. I don’t know where I fit in at the moment but after the World Cup, I can get up there and train and play well there. Hopefully, I can get a few opportunities to play next [season].”
For now, Murphy’s focus is on the U20 World Cup, at which Ireland’s recent defence coach at the age grade, Willie Faloon, will take the reins from his dad.
“I don’t miss him at all,” Jack says of Richie with a laugh. “It’s quite different. Willie’s come in as head coach, he’s been here for a long time with the 20s so he knows it inside out. He’s worked really closely with us, our defence coach for the year. He’s been really, really good.
“Doaky (Neil Doak) came in and he’s done really well with Keats (Ian Keatley) and Aaron Dundon as well. We have quality coaches so I don’t think we miss anything.
“Everyone does things in little different ways but the majority of the stuff we’ve been doing is staying the same. We’re just trying to make it better like we always are, trying to improve every day.”
New boss Faloon echoed the sentiments of his out-half at Thursday’s U20s media day, although he offered a touch more sentimentality towards his predecessor than Jack Murphy could stomach.
“There’s been a little bit of transition time, just getting used to Richie not being there, like,” said the former City of Armagh head coach, 37.
“I’ve been here for three years and he’s been there the whole time so it has been a bit of a transition but no, I think we’re in a good place now.
“I suppose, because the changeover came quite late in the day, like, and this is a group that’s obviously worked together a lot, we haven’t looked to make a lot of changes; just subtle changes, a few things just to evolve how we play; areas we wanna go a little bit deeper in and play a bit harder in.
“Because I’m head coach now and the roles have changed, I can lead a little bit more now around that defence where we want to go a little bit harder, y’know?”
Asked if by ‘harder’, he meant simply more physical, Faloon replied: “Yeah, I suppose, as I said, just evolving our defence. We’ve tried to kick on a layer from what we did in the Six Nations.
“We’re working with a development group and there’s always going to be that effort to add layers to what we do. So, I suppose we’re trying to do that with every part of the game from my side, from the defensive point of view, we want to bring on that aspect.”
Meanwhile, the Ireland U20 women’s team are gearing up for the inaugural Six Nations in the female code, a concept which head coach Niamh Briggs believes will be of enormous benefit in bridging the gap between age-grade and senior rugby.
Ireland, who will face England, Italy and Scotland at the Six Nations Women’s Summer Series in Parma between 4 and 14 July, today named a 36-woman training squad which will be whittled down after camp in Dublin.
“It’s obviously huge, it’s a natural progression for us,” Briggs said of the new competition. “For a long time, we’ve been looking for these pathways to be put in place. We’ve been looking for structures around that 18s and 20s. It’s so important.
What it does is give players time. When you look back a couple of years ago at that (senior) trip to Japan, we had four or five 18-year-olds. It’s a really difficult place to learn, international rugby is tough.
“This gives players time to expose themselves to better opposition”, former Ireland captain Briggs continued, “and I suppose expose themselves to higher-level rugby, expose themselves to camp and the environment that that brings.
“It’s all a huge learning for them. Not everyone in the squad is going to go on and play senior rugby for Ireland but we have to make sure we prepare them and put them in the best possible position so that they have a chance to go and do that.
“As somebody who’s been working full-time in the pathways for the last year, you can see straight away the hard work that has gone in and we’re getting athletes that are coming through that are definitely better athletes in terms of their physical ability but also their rugby know-how, which is massive.
“It means that in these camps we can push our knowledge quicker and get there faster where we need to go.”
