Geordan Murphy

Anybody seen the Leicster/Saracens match yesterday, what a man and abused by successive Irish managers

don't know if he was abused, but he was certainly under-utilised. Distrusted because of his unorthodoxy and risk-taking. The killer was the broken leg before the World Cup in Australia. He was flying then and the hard paddocks down there were made for him. WAs delighted for him yesterday, he's as Leicester as Martin Johnson. Would love to have seen him at Munster but he just couldn't be prised away.

played great for the tigers/sarries match indeed. Unfortunately Geordan was rarely able to show his club form for his country (like many fo the current national team to be fair)!! The standard of the guiness premiership has dropped quite a lot in recent years, pretty much since Leicster started falling away.

I always thought he wasn't a great tackler too...which at full back should be bread and butter...hence swerving girvan was mostly preferred for his dependency,

When you look at what he has achieved at club level compare to international level and it does raise eyebrows. Yes he has 70+ caps but how many of those were starting?

The very conservative nature of Eddie O'Sullivan and Declan Kidney have often left me bewildered about player selections. This also led to the the lack of competition for places where there should be plenty. There was a time that Eddie wouldn't look at David Wallace, Declan Kidney would never and has in some cases still never looked beyond Marcus Horan, Bull Hayes, Sean O'Leary, Donnacha O'Callaghan, Paddy Wallace (who wouldn't get in Leinsters 3rd's) unless forced to do so by injury. Thats wrong on so many levels.

Geordan Murphy, Bob Casey, Trevor Brennan, Donnacha Ryan, Leo Cullen and hence Ireland has suffered.

Geordan took a long time to get over the weak left arm that left the French hooker in a few years ago, but it was a fallacy that Girvan, who didn't do much swerving, was better under the high ball. He was extremely reliable though and Geordan, like most highly talented players, sometimes made mistakes trying things - that missed tackle was rank bad though, and I say that as a massive fan who feels he should have played 100 times for Ireland.

His pace has reduced a lot in the last two years and by his own admission, he's much more predictable now. As I said earlier, he was absolutely ripping it up when he broke his leg v Scotland and has picked up injuries at bad times - missed all of the last Six Nations last year - apart from that.

Can't for the life of me understand how Ryan isn't playing right now.