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Cadan Murley: 'I’m a bit different from other wingers'

By PA
(Photo by Tom Dulat/Getty Images)

Cadan Murley is willing to temporarily suspend his allegiance to Manchester United as he analyses Erling Haaland for clues on how to enhance his own finishing.

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The Gallagher Premiership’s most prolific try scorer of last season sees value in looking to other sports for inspiration and identifies Manchester City marksman Haaland as the most insightful player to watch.

Haaland has set a new record for goals scored in a Premier League season with 52 and Murley, the Harlequins wing hoping to make his England debut this summer, admires his instinct for knowing where the chances will fall.

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“I’m a United fan and I wish we had Haaland,” Murley told the PA news agency at the launch of Spabreaks.com’s Men’s Health Week campaign Real Men Relax.

“It’s hard when he scores against us, but as a sportsman, you’ve got to respect everyone out there and what Haaland has done is unbelievable.

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“Whenever he is needed, he is always there in the right place at the right time. That is kind of true of me on the rugby pitch as well – a lot of people say my tries are walk-ins, but you have got to be there in the right position. Haaland is always lurking. He is a great finisher and a great footballer but for me, it’s his ability to know where to be that stands out.”

Murley’s 15 tries last season – he was also the second-highest try scorer behind Max Malins in 2021/22 – have put him in contention for World Cup selection and he could win his first cap during the four warm-up Tests.

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While possessing a nose for the line and surprising power for a 23-year-old who is 5ft 8in and weighs 15st 2lbs, developing familiarity with his teammates has been just as instrumental to his consistency as a finisher.

He added: “A lot of it comes down to who you are playing with and if you know them well enough. Do you know what they are going to do? For example, I know that Andre Esterhuizen and Alex Dombrandt will probably make gainline and will look for off-loads, so fishing in and around those two is very good.

“And of course, Marcus Smith can pull a crossfield kick out of anywhere. He likes me to be in certain positions on the touchline – if he has a couple of looks and there is space there then I know he’s going to do that.

“Those relationships are really important, but there are also other things that you need to practice day in and day out on the training field. Mainly I do one on ones. I’m a bit different from other wingers. I don’t have the best feet out there, but I’m also more powerful than some.

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“So I practice grabbing bigger people and practice finishing drills. My power has come from when I played back row when I was younger. I was never the biggest so I’ve always had to punch above my weight.”

Revitalised by a mandatory five-week rest period that included 10 days spent in Marbella, Murley has been selected in England’s first training squad of the summer with clear instructions from head coach Steve Borthwick on what is expected.

“Steve has given general instructions to all the back three. He wants us to be aerially dominant, so he’s asked us to always work on the high ball,” he said.

“The way the international game is going, there is a lot more kick chase, but they want that to be done at as high a speed as possible so we have been doing lots of sprint repeats.

“Steve also wants us to be physical – the most physical wingers in the world. One on one you expect the attacker to win, but if you can become dominant in defence then that can give your team an edge.”

  • Cadan Murley was speaking as Spabreaks.com, the UK’s leading spa booking and experience agency, launch their Men’s Health Week campaign Real Men Relax, to highlight the benefits of spa to men of all trades and backgrounds. For more information, visit www.spabreaks.com
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J
JW 1 hour ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.


He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.


The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).


The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.


The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).


It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.

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