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Murphy making every second count

Wednesday, July 04, 2012

After making himself noticed on Carrigaline teams which reached county minor football finals in 1995 and 1996, Nicholas Murphy found himself coming to the attention of Cork senior manager Larry Tompkins.

By Denis Hurley
The teenager became a part of the panel for 1997, but his first exposure to senior championship football was not a pleasant one as he sat on the bench watching Martin Daly score the goal to give Clare a 2-13 to 1-14 win over Cork in a Munster semi-final at Cusack Park, Ennis.

It was not even the end of June, but the inter-county year was over.

“When you feel that you’re going out playing with Cork you’d expect a bit longer,” he said, “when you’re growing up it’s Cork-Kerry and the first year I never got that opportunity.

“You’d be kind of saying, ‘Is this the way it’s going to be?’, but thankfully it didn’t turn out like that.”

As the only remaining link playing-wise with that defeat (manager Conor Counihan was one of Tompkins’ selectors), Murphy knows the dangers of looking beyond Sunday.

“You can never take anything for granted,” he says.

“Even when we played Clare in recent years, they’ve put it up to us for 40, 50 minutes and if they got a bit of luck it might have been different, we were lucky to get a couple of goals and pull away.

“You have to treat every game as if it’s your last, push everyone to the limits and try to make the most of it.”

Cork’s last game against Kerry provided relatively new territory for Murphy. Despite having spent almost all of his inter-county career at midfield, he was selected at full-forward, one of two late replacements, along with Ciarán Sheehan, after Fintan Goold and Pearse O’Neill cried off with injury.

“It’s a different role but you’re happy enough to be on the team, no matter where you’re playing.

“With the square-ball rule, there are a lot of teams looking at that scenario, that’s the way it’s going to be.

“They’re going to use different options, Aidan Walsh was being tried there during the league but with Pearse and Fintan being injured for the Kerry game I got my opportunity. If you can do a job, better again, but there’s a good panel there and there’s no guarantee of being in there the next day.”

That heavy competition for places – along with O’Neill and Goold, Daniel Goulding was another not in the starting 15 against Kerry – is what Murphy feels maintains the intensity, ensuring that concentration will not waver against Clare.

“In fairness to Conor, he has no problem telling a fella that too, if he isn’t pulling his weight in training he won’t be picked.

“Fellas are driven during training matches because they know he goes on what he sees on the pitch.

“There’s no point being brilliant during the league and falling away come championship. He wants you to keep playing well all the time and keep pushing each other.

“I know the media are expecting us to walk through it or whatever but Clare are there for a reason.

“They beat Limerick, who have given us and Kerry bother over the last number of years, so we won’t be taking anything for granted.”

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