Murphy: I’ll learn penalty miss lesson

DONEGAL attacking star Michael Murphy vows he will learn from the experience of his last-minute penalty miss in the All-Ireland U21FC final a fortnight ago.

Donegal lost to Dublin in the Breffni Park decider by two points with their talisman Murphy seeing his injury-time penalty attempt crash off the bar.

Ironically Murphy played a club match for Glenswilly the next day in which he rifled a spot kick to the net.

“You have no other option but to get back playing football.

“I just got back playing club football and training away. You just have to try to learn from the experiences.

“I played a club game the next day. There is no point sitting down and feeling sorry for yourself.

“I put a penalty away that day. It just shows you some days these things work for you and other days they don’t.

“Maybe if I had of missed it again I would have been wondering about handing over these responsibilities

“On the day Dublin were the better team, but if you had put it in the back of the net you would probably be sitting here as All-Ireland champions,” he said.

Murphy believes it is irrelevant as to whether he would have scored if the new rule of penalties being taken from 11 metres out had been in place, as opposed to the old distance of 13m.

And he would have no qualms about taking a penalty if called up in Donegal’s Ulster SFC quarter-final against Down on Sunday week.

“On the day I hit the crossbar and missed it.

“Some people might say if it was a couple of metres closer in it might have been lower and gone into the net. Ifs and buts and maybes.

“At the end of the day Dublin are champions and we’re not.

“I’m sure there would be another good few candidates on the Donegal senior team at the moment that would be well capable of standing forward and hitting a penalty.

“It’s something that won’t affect me.”

Murphy will be in opposition to the man who introduced him to senior championship football Brian McIver in Sunday week’s clash in Ballybofey.

Former Donegal boss McIver is now part of James McCartan’s backroom team in Down and Murphy has paid tribute to his former mentor.

“Brian brought me in a couple of years ago to the Donegal team and any dealings I had with him were first class. He is a very nice man too. It is going to get a lot of attention and Down are going to be very well prepared for the game.

“It is massive for us just to get back to winning ways in Ulster. The last two years getting beat by Antrim and Derry in our own back yard in Ballybofey were two big disappointments.”