Murphy: Lay off our style

MICHAEL MURPHY has branded some of the criticism of Donegal’s style of play as “disgraceful” and “disrespectful” and believes the county can take heart from the way Dublin claimed Sam Maguire on the back of similar reconstruction.

Jim McGuinness defended his tactics time and again over the summer, starting with the first game of the championship back in May when they faced Antrim in Ballybofey and all the way through to their exit at the hands of Dublin in the semi-final.

The Kerryman commented how the first half was like looking into the apocalypse, before moving onto saying that the Donegal team played ‘shiite football’ and then concluding by saying that the Glensmen’s management team should be brought to the Hague for crimes committed against gaelic football.

“It was unfair,” said Murphy. “To be quite honest, it was nearly bordering on disgraceful some of it. That’s the way football goes and the way GAA goes. I thought after the way we worked all year I thought it was a bit disrespectful.”

Much of the same madness was also present in that evening’s edition of The Sunday Game where analysts Tony Davis, Ciarán Whelan and, to a much lesser extent, Jason Ryan expressed grave concern about the imminent decline of gaelic football following Donegal’s display, or rather the manner in which they went about stifling a Dublin display. The “spirit of the game” was even discussed and it was feared that clubs throughout the land were now going to adopt the tactically absurd approach employed by the northerners, all of which irked Donegal’s star attacker.

“We know we’re going to have to try to improve on a lot of things because our semi-final performance wasn’t good enough. Going out again next year, we’re going to have to double the effort.”

Back in 2009, Pat Gilroy predated McGuinness in his acceptance that a previously swashbuckling team would have to change its ways and place much greater emphasis on defence if they were to drop their nearly-man tag.

Like Donegal, Dublin found the new mindset was, in actual fact, too defensive, but a solid base had been built and that allowed attention to turn to an attacking strategy that complemented the new reality and compete for the biggest of prizes.

Murphy doesn’t see the new All-Ireland champions as an exact blueprint for Donegal to follow, but he does see the parallels.

“The first couple of years, their game plan or their system or whatever you want to call it — their method of playing — was developing the whole time and this year it’s really come to fruition. They were able to mix both, well organised defensive play and going forward as well they were very, very potent. That’s the things that we’re going to learn.

“We’re only in our first year under Jim and Rory (Gallagher) and they did a massive job. We know ourselves we’re going to have to develop the way we play. We’re going to find new players and add new players and strings to our bow as players ourselves and hopefully bring things to the table for the greater good of the team if we’re going to improve.”

Whatever about aesthetics, Donegal can look back on a breakthrough year that delivered a Division Two Allianz League title, a first Ulster title since 1992 and a two-point defeat by the eventual All-Ireland champions at the penultimate hurdle.

The next campaign is still months away — and Murphy spoke yesterday of the need to avoid second season syndrome – but he has considerable business to attend to before the Dr McKenna Cup and pre-season training swings round again in a few months time.

Murphy and his club Glenswilly will soon face Colm McFadden’s St Michael’s and the county captain is balancing those commitments with frequent trips to Dublin where he is currently training with Anthony Tohill’s preliminary International Rules panel.

Neil McGee and Karl Lacey are also making that journey at the moment and, if Murphy had his way, the latter’s diary would be further burdened with an appointment to pick up the award for player of the year in the months to come.

“Competition will be very stiff,” he said. “In our eyes there was nothing like Karl this year, what he did, not only defensively, but also he was the instigator of a lot of our attacking moves this year too … he’s been immense. He’ll have us well up there with a shout.”