Christmas ought to really bring some distraction but, then again, this one will be different for Richie Murphy with complete switch off difficult to fully achieve despite his best intentions.
He and the family will be back down in the Bray area (south of Dublin) at his parents’ home but even there Saturday’s game will be hard to completely ignore. The family dynamics will see to that, even if a serious attempt is made to keep rugby off the agenda.
After all, son Ben will naturally be there and is a regular in the Connacht squad, the team his dad Richie will be plotting to overcome with some input possibly also coming from younger son Jack who debuted for Ulster off the bench last weekend.
It also just so happens that Richie’s side will be trekking off to Galway having suffered five straight losses just to add a little bit more edge to the Murphy household though, of course, all this will very much be parked as best as it can be over Christmas dinner.
“Christmas Day will be very interesting,” admitted the Ulster coach.
“Because we’re all getting together spending Christmas Day and most of Boxing Day together before we part again.
“It’ll be good to spend a bit of time with the family,” added Murphy senior before explaining that there would be no exchange of information especially over whether Jack is in the match day squad for Galway to potentially face his brother Ben.
It all means that Richie finds himself in a complicated place, but only if rugby becomes a topic of conversation.
“Well, Ben wouldn’t tell us anyway (about whether he plays) so we won’t be telling him,” he said with a grin.
“We haven’t named our team yet, internally we’ll probably name it tomorrow (Christmas Eve) but we’ll be keeping that team in-house.”
Not that Richie hasn’t faced Ben before, Ulster prevailed back in October when the 23-year-old scrum half managed to score.
It’s just that Jack is now closer to being involved on match day and, of course, the northern province are also on a poor enough run of form.
“It’s more of a sideshow for my wife,” Murphy explains of the rather unusual situation in terms of the family’s rugby divisions.
“She’s the one that has to deal with all three of us.
“I definitely don’t envy her position at the moment.
“I haven’t been a very happy husband over the last couple of weeks with not getting those victories,” he added before alluding to where and his two sons all found themselves 12 months ago and marvelling at the change for the lads and himself.
“This time last year, the four of us were sitting in Bray — Ben was at Leinster, Jack was getting ready for the Irish (Under)-20s (then being coached by Richie).
“Our whole lives have changed very quickly.
“But we’re very proud of the two lads, they work very hard at their craft, and we’ll see what happens at the weekend I suppose.”
He doesn’t deny he’s feeling the pressure of Ulster’s worst run of form for quite a while and that it isn’t easy not getting games won when it looks like they have been, as was the case with Munster, even when the odds — Ulster played 50 minutes with 14 on the park due to Tom O’Toole’s red card — were against them.
“Everyone feels pressure,” he admitted. “There are plenty of sleepless nights and getting up early and trying to work things out.
“I think when I came in last year I almost felt we got lucky with a couple of wins, a bounce of the ball either way and we kind of feel we’re on the other side of that now.
“(But) I do feel things will settle down and if you look at the direction we’re going and where we want to be when we get a number of players back into our squad which will create more competition, and it’ll give us more experience.”
Yes, the backline situation has been rather challenging on top of the run of results.
Stuart McCloskey has just been added to a list which includes Jacob Stockale, Rob Baloucoune, Stewart Moore, James Hume, James Humphreys and now Zac Ward, though at least some combination of Nathan Doak, Ben Carson, Ethan McIlroy and Jake Flannery are coming back into the mix again for a possible tilt at Connacht.
“Jude (Postlethwaite) has played a number of games and is 22 years of age, Ben Carson has played a number of games and is 22 years of age, Jack is 20, Nathan has 78 caps and has just turned 23, we’ve a lot of young guys, Scotty Wilson is 22.
“We’re going through a tough time and we’re playing against some very highly rated teams in European rugby.
“We’re not a million miles away, 14 men for 50 minutes (against Munster) and I think we were the better side.
“But we lost and ultimately we have to get over the line and win those ones,” said Murphy.
As for the game, Ulster could well be without O’Toole and may also be drilling down into the Academy again to fill out the squad if some of the backs coming back to training this week don’t make it.
As Murphy admits the stakes are high in this festive interprovincial, for both provinces as though Ulster are down in 11th, the westerners are just a place above them, with the same number of points but separated by a superior points scored differential, though even that is wafer thin.
“I think our run of games has been a bit tougher than theirs especially with Europe (Connacht are in the Challenge Cup),” said Murphy.
“So we talk about the place (Galway), the occasion, what kind of team Connacht are, what they bring in relation to their emotional energy and how tough they are to play against,” explained the Ulster coach.
“You saw that against Leinster, I was at it and 14-0 down they should have been more and then it’s 17-12 and they’ve a chance to win and that’s the team you’re playing against.”
Including, of course, Ben who will be there at Christmas dinner. Christmas Day will certainly be interesting in the Murphy household.