09 March 2023 , 13:45
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Presenter Colin Murray has opened up about working alongside Ronnie O'Sullivan on Eurosport's coverage of snooker.
O'Sullivan worked for Eurosport as a pundit during Murray's time fronting their coverage and Murray has described their time as colleagues as "some of my happiest memories and some of the hardest days".
In an appearance on the Talking Snooker podcast, Murray revealed O'Sullivan was never really "in the best frame of mind" while on punditry duty as he would usually only work for Eurosport after he had already been knocked out of a tournament.
"It's a weird one because the best tournaments with Ronnie were the ones you didn't work with him, because that meant he went deep in the tournament, so therefore he was happy," Murray recalled.
"You're taking a guy who's used to winning but has lost first round in a tournament and his contract says he then has to work X amount of hours for Eurosport. So you're getting that competitor coming in and having to talk about the guy that beat him.
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"Fair play to him he'd turn up and do the shifts, but not necessarily in the best frame of mind." He also revealed O'Sullivan once gave him a one-on-one snooker lesson, with Murray calling it "one of my favourite memories ever".
Murray worked with O'Sullivan on Eurosport's coverage of snooker (PA Media)"Ronnie, and he knows this, him and I wouldn't get on at times, and other times get on like a house on fire," he added. "It's just the way it was and I think we both accepted it for what it was. Some of my happiest memories were with Ronnie and some of the hardest days were too.
"One of my favourite memories ever was Ronnie just being on one one day, one of those days where everything was great and he gave me a 45 minute lesson just on my own on a snooker table, because I'm terrible at it. It was amazing the way he described it and talked about it, it was hardly ever about snooker.
"He would talk about violin concertos and orchestras, parts of songs and how songs were connected to shots, how a violinist plays and a snooker player plays is very similar. I think in that 45 minute session with him my highest break went from 22 to 36, it was crazy. I had some amazing memories with him."