Shaun Murphy interview

The 2005 World Champion was only too willing to take time out from preparing for his Premier League Snooker clash with Ding Junhui last month to offer advice to youngsters hoping to grace the Crucible.

Speaking in a corridor backstage at Southampton Guildhall minutes before chalking up two tons in his 5-1 demolition of the Chinaman, Murphy explained how he avoided temptations as a teenager.

He also stressed the importance of learning a good basic technique and how he regretted trying to change his game when he turned pro.

“It’s around that type of age (15) that people start to be distracted by temptations and all the things that tempt young lads away from all their dreams,” said Murphy who HAS lived the dream.

“I’ve got friends who should’ve and could’ve been golfers, footballers, snooker players. I could name you a dozen to 20 lads who I played snooker with as a junior who should be here. They’d got the talent to be playing Premier League but they didn’t do what was required of them.

“They DID go out on nights out rather than practise. They DID do the things they shouldn’t have done. And it’s cost them. You can have as much talent as you want but you’ve got to make sacrifices.

“It’s a bit of an old-fashioned thing to say but it’s very true that as you get older you get more obstacles come your way and more temptations.”

Murphy says his love of snooker and love of practising makes him “one of the luckiest people alive”.

“One of the things I still have to this day is an undying love for snooker,” he said.

“Each day I think I’m one of the luckiest people alive because I can get up and go and do what I want to do. And I can call it my job.

“I genuinely enjoy going and practising. You have to scrape me off the table sometimes.

“The other distractions that came my way, they’re just natural and happen to everybody. My passion for snooker came through above everything else.”

Murphy revealed it took two years to adapt to a shortened cue-action more suited to pro-tables and TV lights. But apart from that, he insists his game is similar to when he was 12. And that’s a lesson he learnt the hard way.

He said: “With sport in general there are the basics that need to be looked at and a basic good technique has to be adhered to, be they golf or snooker or tennis.

“If you watch early videos of (Roger) Federer hitting a tennis ball, he looks very similar to how he looks today. Early videos of me playing snooker look very, very similar to what you see today.

“You make minor adjustments over a longer period of time. It’s taken me a couple of years to hit the ball a little bit differently to how I was taught. How I was taught doesn’t necessarily fit to this style of play any more.

“It was fine for touring around the country playing in clubs and playing in the junior tournaments and pro-ams in my early pro life. But the conditions that we play under these days are completely different to that. As a golfer, if you were putting at you normal club and then went to play at Augusta in the Masters, you’d have to putt differently otherwise you’d never get it in the hole.

“When I turned pro I made too big a thing of it and it cost me a couple of years. I had to almost go back and re-learn how to play the game because I went from being an amateur to a pro and literally overnight felt a difference in myself as a person.

“Whereas, what I should’ve done was just carry on and played it the same way I’d always played and just enjoyed the game the way I’d always enjoyed it.

“I’d probably have enjoyed a bit more success earlier in my career.

“The game I play nowadays is very similar to the one I used to play when I was 12. Just enjoy my shots, going for my shots, playing to my strengths and taking it on the chin if you lose but enjoying it when you win.”

Picture by Kevin Legg