Celtic star bans skill after it cost him a year of football
Dane Murray has a banned skill move that he won't be trying again any time soon. The defender has taken steps forward this season, finally seeing some regular minutes on the pitch after a torrid time with injury.
Murray became one of Celtic's main starters at the back during Cameron Carter-Vickers' spell out with injury, and Martin O'Neill was impressed with what he saw.
"He's missed essentially two years with injury. He's got all the potential in the world to be a really fine centre back," O'Neill has said. "I've got much time for big Dane Murray. I've got a lot of time for him. I think he's got a proper career. I think he's got a really decent future."
Murray will now likely return to being a bench player due to Carter-Vickers and Auston Trusty returning, while Liam Scales has been in good form of late.
But he still has a bright future ahead of him, still very much developing, keeping in mind the time he lost to injury as a young player.
Murray ruptured his ACL and unusually suffered the same injury again just one month after returning.
He recalled while speaking to The Herald. "I went on a mazy and tried a Rabona. Honestly. I went down, got back up and thought, ‘This doesn’t feel right.’ That was it. I have never tried a Rabona again.”
That's a strange way to pick up such a serious injury, but such is the unpredictability of the human body. Murray's resilience has been remarkable. To go through back-to-back long-term knee issues as such a young player, with all that excitement about breaking into a big club like Celtic, that must be so challenging on the mind.
It's hard enough spending the best part of a year out, and you can only imagine the doubts he had after returning and being ruled out for another year. It takes incredible patience and a relentless amount of rehab to come back from back-to-back injuries like that, and to come through it is something we should applaud.
It's what sets professional athletes apart, and while we won't know what the injuries have cost Murray in terms of development, he is clearly improving now, and there is every chance he becomes a starter at this club.
That would be some story, and there's no doubt that the mental resilience he has gained will help him deal with the pressures of representing the Bhoys.
