England hopeful taking inspiration from Erling Haaland to improve ...

Harlequins wing Cadan Murley is taking notes from record-breaking Manchester City striker Erling Haaland to improve his own finishing.

The Norwegian footballer broke the Premier League goal-scoring record this season and found the net more than 50 times across all competitions in a Treble-winning campaign.

Despite his allegiance to the red side of Manchester, Murley praised Harland’s ability and could also relate to the way in which he scores.

“I’m a United fan and I wish we had Haaland,” Murley told the PA news agency at the launch of Spabreaks.com’s Men’s Health Week campaign ‘Real Men Relax’.

“It’s hard when he scores against us, but as a sportsman, you’ve got to respect everyone out there and what Haaland has done is unbelievable.

“Whenever he’s needed, he’s always there in the right place at the right time. That’s kind of true of me on the rugby pitch as well – a lot of people say my tries are walk-ins, but you’ve got to be there in the right position.

“Haaland is always lurking. He’s a great finisher and a great footballer, but for me it’s his ability to know where to be that stands out.”

Murley finished as the top try-scorer in the Premiership this season with 15, which earned him a spot in Steve Borthwick’s first England training squad ahead of the Rugby World Cup later this year.

The speedster, who is still uncapped at Test level, believes one of the keys to optimising scoring situations is to comprehensively understand what teammates offer and being in the right space to capitalise.

He said: “A lot of it comes down to who you are playing with and if you know them well enough. Do you know what they’re going to do?

“For example, I know that Andre Esterhuizen and Alex Dombrandt will probably make gainline and will look for off-loads, so fishing in and around those two is very good.

“And of course Marcus Smith can pull a crossfield kick out of anywhere. He likes me to be in certain positions on the touchline – if he has a couple of looks and there’s space there then I know he’s going to do that.

“Those relationships are really important, but there are also other things that you need to practise day in day out on the training field.

“Mainly I do one on ones. I’m a bit different to other wingers. I don’t have the best feet out there, but I’m also more powerful than some. So I practise grabbing bigger people and practise finishing drills.

“My power has come from when I played back row when I was younger. I was never the biggest so I’ve always had to punch above my weight.”

Murley, like his teammates, has been tasked by Borthwick to prioritise the aerial battle and kick chase as they prepare for the global showpiece.

“Steve has given general instructions to all the back three. He wants us to be aerially dominant, so he’s asked us to always work on the high ball,” he said.

“The way the international game is going, there is a lot more kick chase, but they want that to be done at as high a speed as possible so we’ve been doing lots of sprint repeats.

“Steve also wants us to be physical – the most physical wingers in the world. One on one you expect the attacker to win, but if you can become dominant in defence then that can give your team an edge.”

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