Defeat hard to take for Murphy

THE sunshine streamed in the Burlington Hotel yesterday morning but for Diarmuid Murphy the fine weather did little to brighten his mood.

Twenty-four hours after succumbing to Tyrone in Sunday’s terrific All-Ireland final, the numbing sense of defeat remained with the Kerry goalkeeper.

“It’s always disappointing to lose an All-Ireland. You’d have to go back through it again on the tape just to see what it was like but my initial reaction to that was that it was maybe a little bit different than 2005 in that we could have done a bit better.”

The match had been flagged as one that would define the modern football era yet for Murphy, losing an All-Ireland final was his only regret, as opposed to being edged out for the team of the decade accolade.

“Losing the All-Ireland is disappointment enough without going into the whole game of the decade stuff. We’ll let others decide that sort of thing. That isn’t something that bothers me. Let others decide that. It isn’t really our business. It’s our business to get on and play the games. We’re just gutted at the loss.”

If there was any defining moment in the match it was the goal that Tyrone plundered after half-time. For Kerry it was a galling score to concede with the ball pinging around the square before Tommy McGuigan prodded it to the net.

“It was a little bit of a sucker punch in that it came straight from the throw-in. Tyrone got a goal and point from the two throw-ins yesterday.

“I thought I got a block on it but it was a pity we didn’t clear the ball after that.”

Reflecting on the season that has careered around several twists and turns, Murphy was unsure if their marathon journey had told at the season’s close.

“We were there in 2005 and people said we didn’t have enough games played. Hindsight is a great thing; you can twist it whatever way you want afterwards but there was only seconds to go and we were only a point down so we were there or thereabouts.

“It was only the last few minutes that possibly we could have taken a few more scores and they went up the field and got a few points and all credit to them.”

The talk of retirements was swirling around the Kerry camp but for Murphy, that was a decision to be made on another day.

“It’s hard to say. Now is not the time to be talking about that kind of thing. I’d be surprised if there was but again, it’s up to each individual to decide what he wants to do.

“We’ve club championship now, we have the quarter-final of the county championship in a few weeks and we’re looking forward to that with Dingle and that’s the next game for us.”

He vowed: “There’s more All-Irelands in our team. Look at the age profile of our team — even compared to 2005 it’s much, much younger, especially up in the forwards so we can use this for motivation for next year to get ourselves back in action again and hopefully do better than we did this year. Pat O’Shea’s done a great job with Kerry and I’d be surprised if he didn’t stay on. He’ll be there again, you can be sure of it.”