Call it the Murphy Rule. It has been in place for a decade. Stop or limit Donegal's inimitable number 14 and you have a reasonable chance of stopping Donegal. He doesn't know who yet but Michael Murphy knows for sure that before throw-in in Markievicz Park this evening, a designated Galway player will fall into step with him. His mission will be to make Murphy his personal obsession for the course of the game. Over the years, certain men have made detailing Murphy a specialised part of their repertoire. Vinny Corey. Justin McMahon. Cathal McCarron. Padraig Hampsey.
“My job was to go out there and, I suppose, to stop him playing, whatever it took,” said Kerry’s Aidan O’Mahony on the morning after the 2014 All-Ireland final during which he didn’t leave the Glenswilly man’s side all day. It could serve as the golden rule for team’s playing against Donegal.
“He was always being double marked. Always,” says Neil Gordon, who coached Murphy from his first year in secondary school in St Eunan’s, Letterkenny. Gordon can recall the childlike anticipation - the rare goose-pimple stuff - that he experienced on the lunchtime he first set eyes on Murphy playing football. The formidable strength had yet to come; it was the purity of his striking and the technical gifts that excited Gordon. “I went home and said there’s a young lad from Glenswilly in there that has it all. I can still see him playing against boys two and three years older. Once he had the ball, they couldn’t get it off him. His balance and poise.”
Within Donegal, Murphy was to football what Joe Canning was to Galway hurling at the very same time: an excited rumour of a force of nature coming through. In his first years with Donegal, the serious counties didn’t have to worry about Murphy because they didn’t worry too much about Donegal. His performance in the 2009 quarter final, a 14-point stuffing by Cork in which Murphy scored 0-6 and laid on two goals, was poignant because it seemed to forecast a career of a rare talent trapped within a place in which it could never fully flourish.
The intervention of Jim McGuinness changed that. From minor to Under-21, when his bullet-shot penalty hit the crossbar in the last minute of the All-Ireland U-21 final against Jim Gavin’s Dublin in 2010, through to his eventual lifting of the Sam Maguire in 2012, Murphy has carried Donegal teams on his back while modestly and genuinely insisting that he is just another player in that team.
Marauding
There is no doubting that Murphy believes this, even if it’s not true. At heart, he is a staggeringly dangerous full forward who rarely gets to play there anymore. On other days he might play as a marauding centre-half. Midway through the McGuinness era he was deployed more and more around midfield as it became obvious that other teams would double and triple team him if he was used as a forward. This summer Rory Gallagher has been using him exclusively in the midfield role.
For someone who is routinely described as the best full forward in the game, the seldom-seen virtues of his game can perplex some viewers. That was best illustrated on an afternoon Sunday Game in 2015, after which Donegal had edged past Tyrone in a ferocious contest in Ballybofey. Justin McMahon’s extraordinarily close marking of Murphy was the feature of a match which Donegal won with a series of late Murphy frees settling a tough, claustrophobic contest. Afterwards Joe Brolly laid his hat at Murphy’s feet.
“The one indispensable in the rise of Donegal. No ego. He slogged his guts out all over the field. He is in my view the most influential player in Gaelic football.”
“That’s a really stupid thing to say Joe- the most influential player in Gaelic football,” contradicted Colm O’Rourke. “Compared to some of the great Kerry players?”
“Who?” demanded Brolly.
“Who? Who?
“There was a fella called Colm Cooper. . . ”
“Look at the teams Colm Cooper has played on! Look what Michael Murphy’s got.”
Then came Pat Spillane. “He is a superb player. There is no doubt about it. In last year’s All-Ireland final he was absolutely peripheral. Aidan O’Mahony had him in his pocket.”
The debate was interesting because it mirrored conversations across the country about Murphy. And also because it reflects a strange truth about Murphy; his excellence has been acknowledged rather than sung in gospel. In a decade of championship football, he has been awarded two All-Stars and has never been nominated for Footballer of the Year. That may be partly attributable to his decision to prioritise the collective over the individual.
Havoc
The last championship goal he scored was in the 2012 All-Ireland final against Mayo. He isn’t always a prolific point-scorer from play, even if he has still contributed heavily to Donegal’s big days in Croke Park: 1-4 in that 2012 All-Ireland final, 0-5 (v Monaghan), 0-5 (v Armagh), 0-3 (v Dublin), 0-4 (v Kerry) in 2014; 0-8 v Mayo in 2016; 0-6 v Dublin in 2016. And, for instance, the 0-3 against Dublin in that famous 2014 semi-final disguises the enormity of his contribution. In the biggest upset of modern times, he was gargantuan, causing havoc at both midfield and on his occasional visits to the full forward berth. His evolution in a Donegal shirt has led to a continual debate. Where should Donegal play Murphy?
“A lot of it has to do with the way the game has progressed,” says Brian McIver, the manager who gave Murphy his senior debut. “I have no doubt that if it was still 15 on 15, you would see him at full forward all the time. But in many ways I can understand Donegal managers looking at whether he is too easily cut off there. Can we get more off him out the field? And also, the loss of Neil Gallagher is a big factor for Donegal. I don’t think people probably appreciated how good a player he was. So that has probably forced the switch of Michael Murphy further out the field on a near permanent basis.”
Murphy spoke recently about McIver’s consideration in bringing him through to the senior squad at 17. He was doing his Leaving Cert and McIver advised him that should be his priority rather than training. “Believe me, he missed very few nights. But at least he knew there would be no consequences.”
His championship debut was a qualifier match against Leitrim: he missed a penalty after 10 minutes.
“And I am standing on the line,” recalls McIver. “I am asking myself: What did I do that for? Let a 17 year old cub take a penalty in a packed stadium? I was annoyed at myself. And 10 minutes later Michael got a ball and took three steps and let fly and I don’t think the goalkeeper moved. That set the tone for his career. Nothing fazed him.”
Transfer list
McIver has managed Murphy and tried his best to neutralise him when he was managing Derry. A 50 metre point from the side line in Celtic Park stands out in his mind and, the summer after, a huge point from distance late in an Ulster semi-final in Clones despite Kevin Johnston hanging out of him. The Derry man belongs to the camp that feels Murphy would be the first player on his list if he could have any player in Ireland.
“Not just for next season but over the past number of seasons. I have no doubt that if there was a transfer list that Michael Murphy would be on the top of many of those.”
The flip side of that is that Murphy does not even make Peter Canavan’s top 10 players in this year’s championship. If Donegal flattered in the league, they have had an Atlantic dunking this summer, revolving around that chastening defeat against Tyrone. Murphy has physically and mentally recalibrated himself as a midfielder for the purposes of embedding the young team Rory Gallagher is putting together. In March, he told Ger Gilroy that the positional distraction is not something that bothers him.
“For some people it is spoken about more than others. Maybe the [number] ‘14’ has something to do with it. I genuinely mean this when I say it but I don’t think about it too much myself. To be honest, it is all pre-programmed. I don’t think there is a case where you can go with a free will and see where you end up. We sit down and see where we can try and exploit spaces in the opposition and if I am part of that inside or further out we just go after that.”
Dilema
It’s a fair assessment of his role and it contains a tantalising alternative: Murphy in a free role, at liberty to make it up as he pleases. If he doesn’t know what he is going to do, then how can the opposition? Against Tyrone, a young Donegal team stalled and were overrun at midfield. Murphy was outscored 0-2 to 0-1 from play by Padraig Hampsey, his marker. That’s the frustration for Donegal supporters who would rather see Murphy unleashed in a more attacking role. Neil Gordon, mindful of the teenage Murphy ruining defences through the centre, wishes he could be used more at centre half.
“We played St Colman’s Newry in the McRory quarter-final. Michael had been injured all year and hadn’t played for us. He would get togged out and do the warm up but he said to me ‘I’m going to give it a go. It’s my last year’. This was five minutes before throw in. I got a surprise and so did the other team. Stephen McNamee from Tyrone was the referee. Michael got two penalties that day but afterwards Stephen said, ‘I could have given him five or six. But where do you stop’. If he gets the ball in the box, something is going to happen.”
It remains to be seen if Donegal feel they can afford to allow him roam forward today. What is certain is that he will have to operate within whatever chinks of light Galway allow him.
“It is a dilemma,” says McIver. “I understand that. It is a dilemma for Donegal management. If you play him inside and he is not getting the early ball required and not getting support when he has it and is surrounded, then you think okay, let’s create more space for him. Most Gaelic football supporters would love to see Michael getting one on one situations and being allowed to play his own game. But the reality check is that you know that’s not going to happen.”
