Rugby star Conor Murray has opened up on the scale of the abuse he received after Ireland's loss to England in the Six Nations, with the 34-year old sent a barrage of messages on social media in the aftermath of the game.
Andy Farrell's men would fall to a 23-22 defeat at Twickenham in a fixture they were expected to win comfortably, with Marcus Smith's late drop goal deciding the game.
Some criticised Murray for his role on the day, with the scrum-half kicking away possession with a couple of minutes to go after Ireland got on the ball inside their own 22. However, the decision to do so was a team one, with the failure to defend the resulting English attack the reason for the loss on this occasion.
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Rugby: Conor Murray opens up on abuse received after England loss
While nobody inside the Irish rugby camp blamed Conor Murray for the defeat, he received messages from quite a few people who did.
Speaking ahead of Munster's game against Northampton this weekend, he opened up on the scale of the abuse that was sent his way in the days that followed the fixture at Twickenham.
That was a weird one, yeah, there’s no hiding from the abuse you get. You can’t get away from it but that clip didn’t even come up in the review, that’s how irrelevant it was.
Genuinely, 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...
But I was taken aback by it, the level of messages coming into my phone...
I genuinely just looked at a couple. 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'...
It was mad, but if I'd made a mistake or missed a tackle you'd think, 'no, fair enough', you could see the reason for it. But, genuinely, that didn't come up in the review.
Whether I made a mistake or not, I wouldn't read it. You're aware of it. You can't not be aware of it, that's the thing in this day and age, you can't not see it.
Unfortunately, incidents such as this one seem to be a regular occurrence in top level sport, with rugby being no exception.
Thankfully, the abuse on this occasion seemed to be water off a duck's back for Conor Murray.
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