Nonsense.

Conor Murray has opened up for the first time about rumours that made their way onto the internet while he was sidelined earlier in the season that suggested he was not in fact injured, but instead failed a drugs a test.

Rumours circulated for weeks that Murray was the subject of a ‘cover-up’ by Munster and the IRFU, which is why his injury was kept a secret. And understandably those vicious and damning rumours hurt the Ireland and Munster scrumhalf.

Speaking at an event at Sarsfield Barracks, Murray told Nick Rabbitts of the Limerick Leader the entire ordeal was “quite tough” for him.

“The toughest part of this was the outside rumours that my friends and family would hear. Crazy stuff that I’d failed all sorts of drugs tests and they were just keeping it under wraps and letting me serve my ban. That kind of hurt a little bit,” he said.

“They were guessing what was wrong, and thinks I’m going to have to retire. It’s not nice hearing it for yourself, but then your family don’t really know either. They are seeing second hand information. It’s quite tough,”

But in the end Murray says his teammates were there to help him through the entire ordeal.

“It was the unity of my team. Munster would hear the same rumours and on Monday morning, they’d be slagging me about it, and make light of it straight away. Having a good team around you and a good head space is really important. It helps me,” he added.

“You hear a lot of players saying they don’t read the media or look at Twitter, but you can’t avoid it. If you don’t see it on your phone, your friends will say it back to you and it will affect you somehow.”

You can read Murray’s words in full here.