The 1 that got away

Kerry will defend their All-Ireland football title without their last, and most experienced, line of defence. And for keeper Diarmuid Murphy, there’s no going back. He spoke to Tony Leen.

REFLECTIONS ‘09. Good gut feelings before Dublin. Eyeing the changing area moments before the final. Tommy G. Tom Sull. Marc. Mike Mac. Checking the gloves for fissures. The final whistle. Valve release. Uncontrolled mayhem. Moments alone, together, in a circle.

Pieces of the puzzle that don’t mean anything until everything’s in place.

“Brian Cody once said that the 10 minutes out on the pitch after winning an All-Ireland final is the best feeling there is,” muses Diarmuid Murphy. “He’s right.

“The minutes in the dressing room before an All-Ireland final, you look around you at the literal and metaphorical circle of friends and colleagues. That’s special too but in a slightly different way. That’s high intensity. Afterwards you lose control for a small while and then you get that window of sanity and calm in the dressing room with the cup in the middle. Just you and the lads. You hold onto that for a bit because within minutes there’s media duties and everyone’s gone their separate ways.”

There’s bits Diarmuid Murphy will miss and linger over, but not so long that he’ll have any regrets.

Matter-of-fact Murph.

“It’s a stage of my life that’s gone now, and I’ll move on from it,” he said yesterday after publicly confirming what his Kerry management already feared – that the Dingle 34-year-old wouldn’t grace a Kerry dressing room again.

“Some inter-county footballers go on about playing for their county like it’s a bit of a chore. I can honestly say I loved every minute of it. We had really good craic with the lads – I don’t know if that comes across with the lads in the Kerry panel all the time – but there’s a great camaraderie there.

“Those moments alone in the dressing room? It’s impossible to articulate that feeling. Is there anything better than that? It’s the together thing – when you win or lose a big game, you do it together. The Group.”

The group that carried Kerry to a 36th All-Ireland title is shedding members at a rate of one a month since September – Murphy follows Sean O’Sullivan into retirement while Tadhg Kennelly and Tommy Walsh have gone to Australian Rules.

Not that Murphy is fearing a Kerry demise. “I’ve always said the toughest forwards I faced were Donaghy, Gooch, Declan and the lads in at training, great talents. The luckiest break I had as an inter-county player was not having to face them in the Championship every summer.”

Murphy was drafted into the senior set-up in 2001, but kicked his heels for three of those summers before Declan O’Keeffe called it quits. Six seasons later, Murphy has a madly successful haul of glories and gongs – four All-Irelands, three All Stars and a drawer full of provincial and National League medals. But it could have ended flatly at the end of 2008. Selector and former playing colleague Eamonn Fitzmaurice believes Murphy is harsh on himself by describing 2008 as “my worst as a Kerry player” but few would have demurred had the Dingle man walked into the sunset at 33.

“Age is largely irrelevant for me because I’ve only been on the team for six years. It really depends on the body. It’s miles on the clock rather than years. 2008 was very disappointing, my poorest year since I got on the team and therefore you are asking yourself questions. Am I finished? Is the body telling you something, is the form gone? I said I’d give it one more year.”

With the change of management came a change of attitude from Murphy in 2009. “Every game was my last in the Championship. That’s the way I was approaching it, whatever happens, happens.”

Trainer Alan O’Sullivan’s new ideas, a reinvigorated Jack O’Connor, Tom O’Sullivan back where he belongs – in the corner – Tommy Griffin outside him, Mike McCarthy coming back.

“We were worried after the Cork games in Munster,” he reflects now. “You’d have to be. Even though we drew in Killarney, we should have lost that game by five or six points. We weren’t playing well at the time.”

The summer’s qualifier roadshow helped Kerry’s rehabilitation but there’s another factor people have overlooked, says their keeper.

“Jack hasn’t got enough credit this year for the manner in which he pulled fellas out of the slump we were in. The way he handled the players and managed the team from the Munster Championship to the day we played Dublin in the quarter-final was really impressive. We couldn’t have been better tuned for that game.

“Jack has to deal with the circumstances he has before him, and we had a particularly good week between the Antrim game and the Dublin game – just talking about the job at hand, getting ready. The supporters made a big difference to us, in Tralee and Tullamore – they really came in behind us in 2009.”

Murphy insists it could have all ended for him in Tralee or Tullamore as quickly as Croke Park. And so be it. But what didn’t kill Kerry made them strong.

“We kept plugging away and winning games. It was a November night in Longford and was always going to be tricky. In the Sligo game we played very poorly, everyone had to hold their hands up apart from Declan (O’Sullivan) and Paul (Galvin). Playing four championship games in as many weeks was a journey into the unknown for most of us. The Antrim game was where we turned things around. We dominated midfield for the last 25 minutes, our forwards were clicking for the first time. I remember coming off the field thinking, we’re in good shape – then we got the draw coming down on the train against the Dubs.”

Hindsight confers illegitimate wisdom, but Murphy’s defiant in his view that Kerry were ready for Croke Park on August Bank Holiday Monday.

“It was the huge occasion we needed. If anyone was going on evidence on what had gone before, there was only call you could make but that suited us – we were written off by all and sundry. Watching The Sunday Game the night before, myself and Tommy G were wondering was the game played already, were we beaten?

“We knew there was a fair bit more in the tank. Put it this way – I was sure we’d play well, whether that was enough to win the game, we didn’t know.”

The Dingle man’s annus mirabilis continued in the quarter-final, a blinding save from Alan Brogan preserving Kerry’s early momentum. Best saves? “You look at context in these things, the most important one is the one that counts. I think if Brogan or Barden got those goals against us, I feel we would still have won those games.

“Like George Best scored six against Northampton in a cup game 30 years ago, and one of them was brilliant. Did it matter?”

One thing’s for sure. Murphy mattered for Kerry.