Conor part of Munster legacy with the Lions

From his home by the banks of the broad, majestic Shannon, Keith Wood considers one of the more startling facts about to be woven into Lions’ folklore.

- PETER JACKSON

Barring accidents, Conor Murray will become the third Munster player to lead the Lions into a Test series in 12 years and the sixth in half a century. Such historical facts mean that of all the Lions’ captains since 1968, about one third have come from Ireland’s ancient provincial Kingdom.

Never can so many leaders have been found in one region of Lions’ territory for the ultimate challenge south of the Equator. Wood, a commanding figure on the last Lions tour of the old century and the first of the new one, is not surprised.

“I do think Munster rugby is a bit different,’’ he says. “Munster is a mixture of cities and a whole lot of countryside. I don’t want to get into the trite docker-to-doctor thing but you are talking about players who have always come from all walks of life.’’

The truncated tour launched yesterday is only the fifth by the Lions to South Africa since the late Sixties. Thanks to Murray’s appointment in preference to Owen Farrell and Stuart Hogg, Munstermen will have been in charge for three of them, from Tom Kiernan in 1968 to Paul O’Connell in 2009.

During the period after Kiernan and before O’Connell, two more of Munster’s finest gave the Lions yeoman service. Donal Lenihan captained the unbeaten midweek team, the renowned ‘Donal’s Doughnuts’, through Australia in 1989.