Kerry's Paul Murphy on piseogs, pressure, and playing a game changed for forwards

“There’s a lake about five miles outside Rathmore up towards the mountain called Shrone Lake and for years I had to go there before every championship game. But I’ve been living in Killarney for years now!

“It was fine when I was living there with Peter Crowley and Brian Kelly and Shane Enright. I look back on those four years as a great time in our lives and during it I used to always go home to Rathmore the night before a match.

“But then I moved in with my now wife [Michelle] and she said, ‘Look, this is ridiculous!’ And she was right! I’ve learned to let go off a few piseogs like that.” 

He has a different routine now. He works for Kerry Group which sometimes involves a drive up to Naas but usually just a trip over to the Tralee office or even working at home. As he put it in his excellent diary of the build-up to last year’s All-Ireland final, days and weeks like these are “an exercise in distraction management” and work is as good a one as any.

“It’s flexible, so I try and get into the office maybe earlier in the week and then work from home maybe at the back end of the week. It’s good in terms of keeping your mind off things once work doesn’t blow up and get very busy. I wouldn’t be for taking three or four days off coming up to a big game like this.” 

These past couple of years he’s taken to doing up a carbonara on the Friday night. Proper Italian, with the egg and parmesan. Then on the Saturday morning he might stroll into Killarney for a coffee and a scone. No hiding, without high-fiving everyone who spots him either. And definitely no unnecessary treks to Lake Shrone over half an hour away.

Then there’s game day. Today.

There’s a passage in the opening chapter of Darragh Ó Sé’s autobiography where on the team bus in to play his ninth and last All-Ireland final he spots on the canal at the back of the Davin Stand a man in a boat with not a care in the world. “I look at the guy and ask myself, ‘Who’s right and who’s wrong here?’ And for just a few seconds I wish I was out there on the water, away from everyone and from everything.” 

On days like today, who does Murphy prefer to be? The guy on that boat or one of the guys on the Kerry team bus?

“Both,” he smiles again. “And you can’t predict [which]. There are days when it weighs very heavy on you and there’s a lot of nervous energy. And then there are days where the drive in is just class. The police escort and that sort of thing.

“We’ve spoken about that as a group the last few years. About trying to enjoy it and not bring extra pressure on yourself. Sometimes [inter-county football] can become a bit suffocating so we need to reinforce [the enjoyment].” 

When Kerry marched in front of the Hill two weeks ago so, Murphy wasn’t going to keep his eyes fixed on the back of Shane Murphy.

“I took it all in. Sure it was class. Probably 90 percent of the Hill was blue but in the corner at the back there was a pocket of Kerry fans who let a flare off and I was looking up there, thinking, ‘That looks savage up there!’ “You have to try and enjoy those things. Few footballers get to experience days like those.” 

Over his 13 years with Kerry it’s not just the routines and piseoga and outlooks that have changed. More than anything so has defensive play, especially these past 18 months.

In that Dublin-Kerry semi-final, David Clifford scored 1-5 from play and his marker Davy Byrne still had a great game. Murphy gave up 0-4 from play to Cormac Costello and yet deserves some credit for his part in helping Kerry keep a fourth consecutive clean sheet.

“A lot of the changes to the game have been to bring on attacking play which is playing into the hands of the forwards a bit. And for the most part if you were to step back and look at as a fan, it’s fantastic. It just makes it more challenging for a defender. Scores have gone up but there’s an understanding that keeping your man scoreless is rarer and rarer so you just have to accept it.

“Previously there would be more bodies back there. And you might have dropped back and given up a tough long-range shot for a point to protect the goal. But now you can’t sag off that much because of the threat of the two-pointer.

“When I started out there was a lot more ball kicked in from midfield or the half-forward line into the inside forwards. There was a lot more contests. It was more of a race out to the ball. Whereas most teams now carry the ball and the challenge as a corner back is working with your half-back who is tracking the half forward coming in. You have to have that relationship to know whether you stick or twist. Do you stick with your own man or do you go the ball-carrier and possibly get caught in no man’s land and be vulnerable to the backdoor cut?” 

This Sunday though he expects a lot more ball kicked in. In that debut year of 2014 that ended with him being man of the match in the final against Donegal, there was that epic series of semi-finals against Mayo. “I think in the replay I started on Alan Dillon, then picked up Cillian O’Connor. Then [after O’Connor clashed heads with Aidan O’Shea], it was someone else. Sure that day was mad.” 

Football has evolved so much since then but some things remain the same. This Mayo team under Andy Moran will kick the ball in. And Mayo like in those semi-final classics of 12 years ago will bring chaos.

“They bring a savage intensity to things. In how they defend, in how they attack. In everything about them. Games against them, there’s pace, collisions, tackling. Other teams would have complicated defensive systems and going into a game against them, we’d be thinking if can isolate some of these defenders, are they really used to it, are they comfortable with it? Mayo are comfortable in that kind of one-on-one defending.

“And obviously their forwards look really good too. We’ve seen a lot of Ryan O’Donoghue for a good number of years, now the whole country knows how good he is, and the two younger lads [McDonald and Beirne] inside with him this year have really taken to Croke Park like a duck to water, all excellent kickers, all excellent finishers. So we’ve no doubt as a full-back line and a team about the challenge facing us.” 

And after that whistle goes? He’s seen both sides of All-Ireland final day. The highs of 2014 and 2022 and 2025. The lows of 2015 and 2019 and 2023. But something else he’s learned from the ever-sensible Michelle is not to get too low or too high over football.

“It keeps rolling on either way. You have a great week if you win, you go to ground if you lose, but either way you’ll be back playing with the club two weeks after the final.

“You can’t let [a defeat] drag you down too much. That’d be my way now of approaching it. I wouldn’t be much fun to be around, my wife is good to let me wallow for a while but then she’ll get to a point where she’ll say, ‘Look, we’re doing something today, all right?!’ 

“I remember in 2023 I was still moping around by the Saturday and she said, ‘Right, we’re doing something today!’ And we went up to Lahinch for the day, visited a friend of mine, had a bowl of chowder, a couple of pints and that was it. Parked. There are other things going on.”