Ray of hope Murphy may face Dublin

At the end of June, Brian Murphy’s prospects of playing hurling again in 2013 looked bleak.

Having suffered a broken collarbone at the end of Bride Rovers’ county championship win over Ballinhassig, the defender was ruled out for the rest of the year.

But a ray of hope from an unlikely source. A friend in the horse industry put him in touch with Dr Philip Pritchard, who specialises in treating such injuries in jockeys across the water.

“There’s a good friend of mine, Joe O’Neill, he’s working in the horse industry in England,” Murphy said.

“I rang him to ask how jockeys recovered from collarbone injuries, what they do regarding recovery.

“On the day I rang him, he asked me if I’d be interested in going over and meeting this doctor and seeing what he’d say. I had nothing to lose at that stage so the next day, I took a flight over.

“The doctor told me that if I was a jockey, he’d hope to have me back in two weeks, obviously they don’t rise their arms above their shoulders. So far it’s going well, I don’t know what the end result is going to be but it has given me hope.”

Pritchard manipulated the bone back into place, and though Sunday’s All-Ireland semi-final against Dublin may come too soon, Murphy is back in training with the county squad.

Murphy — a full-time coach with the Cork County Board — counts himself lucky that he has understanding employers during his rehabilitation. He is also pleased to be in the position where he is still involved, having flirted with the idea of retirement after the birth of a daughter at the beginning of this year.

“At the time, a lot of things would be going through your mind,” he admitted. “We had a new child and the pressures that brings (is huge). It’s a change of lifestyle but talking to Jimmy and the lads, it’s very difficult to say no to coming back.”

Given that he has had such a good record with injuries in his Cork career to now, Murphy hardly expected to be a spectator with Cork in an All-Ireland semi-final.

Along with Paudie O’Sullivan, who has a broken shin, he has been pucking every ball on the sideline.

“I’d be similar to Paudie. I was talking to him a few nights after I got injured and the Munster final was coming up, obviously you’d want Cork to win but you’d give anything to be out there.

“Nothing would have made me happier if the guys had won that day, it would have allowed me another week to get ready for a semi-final, but the last day against Kilkenny, I don’t think there’s a Cork man out there that couldn’t have been proud with the way the lads played. It’s great to be in the semi-final.”

Such a situation might have been hard for the casual observer to foresee earlier this year, when whispers pointed to discord within the Cork team. Murphy took it all with a “grain of salt”.

“We got crucified for being relegated, but now you have the two teams who were in the relegation final in the All-Ireland semi-final. It comes with the territory, the last few years there has been talk about in-fighting or players not getting on. I hear these things before a training session, then you go to training and the two fellas are getting on better than ever. You take it with a grain of salt.”