As the Tigers squad collected their medals at the end of the Guinness Premiership Final victory over London Irish, Murphy insisted that club captain Corry should lift the trophy. And when the former England skipper do so, it gained the biggest cheer of the day from the Tigers supporters.
“Cozza has given everything for Leicester for 13 years,” said skipper and man of the match Murphy.
“Such is the nature of the man that he was reluctant at first do it, but I consider myself just filling a role at the moment and Cozza is club captain. He is tremendous captain and a tremendous bloke, I was always going to get him to do it. It is his responsibility to lift the trophy.
“He has such great experience, he really helps me out and gives everyone a lot of encouragement. It is fantastic having someone with his experience around the team, he is still a tremendous influence on everybody.
“It was a fitting send-off for him in terms of the Guinness Premiership.”
Celebrating the sixth league title of his Tigers career to top off a testimonial season he shares with Lewis Moody, Murphy added: “It is a very special moment to win the league title. When you win silverware you have got to enjoy it. A squad of 40 or so players has been involved and they all can enioy it. They all deserve it.
"We had to dig in. It was a big boost holding the line in that period when we were down to 14 men.
“Then in the second half we played some good stuff and made some good line breaks.
“In a final, teams can go into their shell and we probably did a bit of that, but when we played we did very well.
“Over the season I think the best team has won.”
