Conor Murray says Ireland's players are desperate for another crack at toppling Eddie Jones' England after leaving Twickenham with "huge belief".

Ireland's recent poor record against Jones' 2019 World Cup finalists continued in the 18-7 Autumn Nations Cup defeat on Saturday.

Andy Farrell's side never looked like preventing a fourth successive defeat to their rivals and must wait until the final round of the 2021 Six Nations in March for an opportunity to halt that run.

Scrum-half Murray, who came off the bench to be part of an improved second-half showing, is encouraged by the positive mood within Ireland's camp and optimistic for the future.

"If we had taken one or two of our opportunities then the game is up in the air as to who gets the win," said the 31-year-old.

"In terms of that alone, there's belief, and in terms of the general feeling leaving Twickenham this time - having given away a couple of easy scores, if you will - then there's huge belief (of beating England next time).

"And that's without going into the feeling in the squad.

"There's an unbelievable atmosphere in terms of growth and mindset and things like that, and the excitement of youth and experience.

"I think lads in the dressing room will be dying to get another chance at this England team.

"They're a really good side and there's a lot of respect there but I think we'll be really eager to play them again."


'If they were in charge of an army it would be off the charts in terms of causalities'


Murray has lost his starting spot to Jamison Gibson-Park for his country's opening two Autumn Nations Cup games.

He replaced his New Zealand-born team-mate with half an hour to play on Saturday and helped Ireland post more points and greater possession than their hosts in the second half.

Despite being comfortably beaten overall, the Munster man felt Ireland gave a better account of themselves than on their previous two fruitless trips to London.

"In general, maybe they didn't have to work as hard for their scores as we did for our opportunities," he said.

"But watching on in the first half and then coming on, we felt a lot better than we have been at Twickenham before.

"There have been times before - let's just say the last two times we've come here - and we've known what's going to come our way in terms of line speed, in terms of the volume of their players and things like that, and their kicking game.

"I thought we dealt with it a lot better and I think we just boxed a little bit more clever." 

Meanwhile, England head coach Eddie Jones said he had met with Liverpool's director of research Ian Graham to get some insight into the Premier League soccer champions' transitional play and that it played a role in Jonny May's sensational try against Ireland.

May's score  moved him joint second on the all-time England try-scorers' list.

The winger received the ball inside his own 22 and tore past Chris Farrell.

He then kicked ahead and outpaced Gibson-Park in a 50-metre sprint, nudged it forward again over the try-line and dived on the ball.

Jones said the try was an example of the new techniques he had worked on with his players following a meeting with Graham.

"I really enjoyed May's flick-the-switch try, where we went from defence to attack, which is an area that we haven't been fantastic at," Jones said. 

"The transitional parts of the game are so important. It's a pretty exciting area for us and it's pleasing to see that try, where we shifted the ball quickly to the outside.

"We had a great meeting with the Liverpool analyst. Believe Us, which is the story of Liverpool, talks a bit about how they are using data analytics to improve their game."

The 60-year-old Australian also said England were developing a database to help track what players are doing out of possession.

Follow Ireland v Georgia this Sunday via our live blog on RTÉ.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app, watch live on RTÉ One from 1.40pm, or listen to live commentary on RTÉ Radio 1's Sunday Sport