Murphy: I doubted we’d ever do it

Seven-hundred and sixty days.

A month over two years.

That’s all that separated a Donegal team that was so embarrassed by Armagh in a 2010 All-Ireland qualifier in Crossmaglen and the side that claimed the ultimate honour for the county at HQ yesterday afternoon.

That and a u-turn in attitude, commitment and belief and a manager who refused to let a history of defeat and disillusionment continue to dictate the terms of engagement for a bunch of players whose talent had lain unfulfilled for so long.

Twelve of those players who went down to what was, lest we forget, a weakened Armagh side two years ago were on the Donegal panel yesterday afternoon, among them Michael Murphy and Colm McFadden.

“I’ve been asked that a couple of times but it hasn’t sunk in yet,” said Murphy. “It’s kind of surreal. You never thought it was over. Ask any footballer, it’s just relief that you didn’t get beat.

“That was the overriding feeling going up the steps with the boys and going around the pitch with the boys. Like Jim (McGuinness) was saying, it was something that will stick with you for your whole life and it’s something you will cherish.”

Murphy was just three years of age when Donegal won their first and, until yesterday, only All-Ireland senior title but he has never needed a history lesson in order to understand the importance of such success to the county.

When he was still a boy, the lad from Glenswilly had his picture taken alongside Anthony Molloy, the winning skipper from 1992, and emulating that legendary group of men was a thought that obsessed him for many a year.

Yesterday was his chance and he took it.

Every player visualises their big day but even the most fanciful of scenarios would pale into the one which unfolded yesterday as Murphy rose above Kevin Keane to claim Karl Lacey’s ball and fire the ball high into the Mayo net.

“Certain scenarios can crop up that win games. It’s something you visualise when you are younger and something you visualise in the weeks leading up to the game, that a scenario like that might arise and if it does you have to capitalise on it as best you can.

“It was nice to have done that. It was just unfortunate that midway through the first-half and into the latter stages that we didn’t carry on playing the way we normally do and that affected us and affected the scoreboard.”

But not to an extent that ultimately mattered.

The display may not have been perfect but it never needed to be. For years, McFadden had featured on Donegal teams that played football with an elegance that few could match but they never got to September.

There were times, he admitted, when he thought they never would.

“Ach, I suppose starting out maybe 10 years ago we were getting to All-Ireland quarter-finals and the next year we got to an All-Ireland semi-final so early on we all thought we could probably get over the line one day.

“But as the years went on we kinda got knocked out in the first round of the championship and maybe early on in the backdoor as well and we were probably getting up in the years as well. So, later on in the career, I probably thought it wasn’t going to happen.

“But, when Jim came in two years ago, the first thing he did was put the belief back into us. It just didn’t happen overnight, slowly but surely we all started believing.

“Last year’s Ulster championship would have given us a lot of belief and after the Dublin game in last year’s semi-final, we would have learned a lot from that. We would have left here that day disappointed we were beat but hungry to come back.”

So much hurt and all of it washed away in one spiritual day of cleansing.