Murphy’s upbringing the perfect preparation
At first glance, it looked like a case of a minor star being shown the wrong door such is Murphy’s youthful look. It was a moment that served as another reminder of the changes being experienced inside the Kerry dressing room.
Murphy has enjoyed a seminal year. Involvement in January’s McGrath Cup led on to a league debut against Dublin, a championship debut and, on Sunday, a first championship run-out at HQ.
“You feel a bit of nerves,” he admitted. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t. But you feed of the other guys, the more experienced guys. You watch them and see how they deal with it.
“Having played here in the league, I think that was a big help. Not that the lustre was off it, you were just used to the surroundings and you get used to the routine, coming in under the stand and that sort of thing. It’s different to any other place in the country so championship is different.”
The faces may change over the years, but the order of business doesn’t. Croke Park makes no allowances for youth or inexperience. You sink or you swim. Murphy got his hair wet, but emerged with his head well above water.
Shane Walsh will do that. You’ll win some and lose some. The Kilkerrin/Clonberne forward managed five points two days ago, a pair of them from play on an afternoon when the centre-forward wearing 14 traded places more than once with Paul Conroy, who started on the edge of the small square.
Murphy shadowed him everywhere.
“He’s an excellent player,” said the Kerry defender. “He’s deceptively quick and is very comfortable on both sides. He’s a very good player and is only 20 so he has a long career ahead of him.”
Murphy, too, you would imagine.
He watched from the stands 12 months ago as Kerry hummed and hawed in defeating Cavan before engaging in immortal combat with Dublin in the last four. From that to marking Galway’s danger man represents big gains in a small period of time. It was actually an unusual pairing. Managers invariably baulk at the prospect of partnering a defender so green with a forward of such import, but Murphy felt the benefit of growing up in a county that knows a thing or two about decent attackers.
“Well, you’re playing club football in Kerry and you’d be marking the likes of James [O’Donoghue], Colm Cooper, Darran [O’Sullivan], all these guys so you get good training off them and marking these boys in training.
“So, marking these boys, you start to back yourself a bit and you know you can put it up to the likes of these guys. It would give you a bit of confidence.”
It’s a commodity he displayed in facing Walsh and one he still possessed when facing up to a phalanx of dictaphones and microphones. One query as to the likely winners of the other semi-final was dismissed promptly as a “stinker” of a question.
Murphy and Kerry have enough to be getting on with anyway.
James Horan’s Mayo are unquestionably further along in their development than Eamonn Fitzmaurice’s men. And the weekend’s comfortable, but far from perfect, defeat of Galway has diluted some of the more outlandish predictions made for Kerry on the back of their Munster final masterpiece.
“If you won by a point or by 10, it doesn’t matter because it’s the same result. After the Munster final, there was probably a lot expected.
“We might not have hit those heights [this time], but we can work hard for three weeks for the semi-final.”
