Time to rejoice as Murray-Carbery axis gets Munster debut

For Munster fans, a long wait will finally come to an end on Sunday as Joey Carbery and Conor Murray are set to start their first game together for the Province in the Champions Cup tie with Castres.

When Munster announced the arrival of Carbery from Leinster in the Summer, the Province began to hope that the fly-off could be the missing piece in a Munster squad that had reached successive Champions Cup semi finals.

However, Carberry’s involvement with the Irish team coupled with Murray’s neck injury has prevented Johann van Graan from fielding the pair together.

That is until now, with the prospect mouth-watering for Munster fans.

Murray only returned to the Munster setup a fortnight ago for the trip to Zebre and in his absence, Carbery has settled into life at Munster well.

After a couple of seasons at Leinster where he was preferred back up to Johnny Sexton, often finding himself at 15, this season has seen Carbery take on the mantel as number 1 out-half for the first time in his career where he has excelled in the role.

The opening few weeks were promising for the No.10 but it was not until the clash with Gloucester that Carbery really announced him self to the Munster faithful.

In his opening Champions Cup game at Thomond Park, Carbery was awarded Man of the Match in a brilliant attacking performance that saw him score a try whilst adding four conversions and a penalty.

This Sunday he returns to Thomond and will have the best scrum-half in the world by his side.

Conor Murray was named at number nine for his Province forthe first time since the Pro 14 semi final defeat to Leinster in May last weekand looked straight back to his best.

The tempo which he adds to this team, as well as his abilityto control the game from the base of the scrum are unrivalled with all the attributes you could want from a scrum-half.

Johann van Graan’s side have been far more attacking in their approach this season and are slowly shedding their tag of being predictive in attack.

With the inclusion of Murray and Carbery, van Graan’s first choice playmakers, Munster fans may well get a glimpse into a very successful future on Sunday.

In addition it will be Carberry and Chris Farrell’s first time in action together with the bruising centre phenomenal in his return to the side from an ACL injury last Friday with a brace of tries.

Munster’s 9,10-13 axis is as strong as its been in years andvan Graan can take full advantage of the tools at his disposal, starting this Sunday at 1pm in Thomond Park.