Keeper Shane Murphy the latest to visit Jack O'Connor's second chance saloon
Kerry goalkeeper Shane Murphy. Picture: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
Seeing as this is his third coming, it’s entirely apt that departures mean absolutely nothing to Jack O’Connor.
Just when it seemed Mike McCarthy had played his last game for Kerry in 2006, O’Connor persuaded him to make like a phoenix and he claimed a fourth All-Ireland medal three years later. Eoin Brosnan stepped away for the 2010 season only to be lured back by O’Connor and come within a whisker of his fourth Celtic Cross.
Seeing as he is coming in at the start of the season and not during it like McCarthy or Brosnan, Shane Murphy mightn’t be in the same bracket. Nevertheless, this is a comeback that the 28-year-old goalkeeper might have considered beyond him when he didn’t appear in the 2019 panel following Dr Crokes’ run to the All-Ireland club final.
Even when Shane Ryan was injured last year, Peter Keane chose not to call in Murphy, instead naming goalkeeping coach Brendan Kealy, who had left the panel in July 2017, to deputise for Kenmare Shamrocks’ Kieran Fitzgibbon.
Last Sunday’s game marked Murphy’s ninth senior appearance for Kerry. The previous eight — three of them in the championship — came in Kerry’s forgettable 2018 season which finished for him when he was replaced by Brian Kelly for the second Super 8 game against Monaghan.
Captaining the team as he did that summer was an extra burden. His club-mate Micheál Burns previously spoke of the added responsibility he felt when he was asked to skipper against Galway in early 2018 - “it was my worst game in the league because I was thinking about it so much”.
Burns referenced Murphy too: “For all the Crokes lads (who had been) there, for Colm (Cooper) it would have been different. He was obviously the best person to captain the team anyway but when it was my first season involved in Kerry, Shane’s first season, Gavin’s (White) first season... it is a big burden.”
Having struggled with short kick-outs against Galway’s press in the first Super 8 game four years ago, Éamonn Fitzmaurice dropped him for the trip to Clones. In truth, the abbreviated restarts had caused him difficulty going back to the league earlier that year, especially against Monaghan in Inniskeen where the home team scored three points as a result.
However, as Niall Morgan’s impressive statistics in last year’s All-Ireland final underline and with plenty of other supporting evidence mounting, longer kick-outs are now in vogue, with Murphy’s booming right boot beneficial in that regard, something O’Connor has clearly identified.
Against Mayo last September, Tyrone scored three points from four long kick-outs and one from a short, while they conceded none from going long and one along with three scoring chances from staying short.
With auxiliary midfielders as targets and the difficult wind conditions in St Conleth’s Park six days ago, Murphy was battling against all sorts of elements. O’Connor will want more tigerish play from those around his fielders too but the project appears to be underway.
Both Morgan and Monaghan’s Rory Beggan, Morgan in particular, were afforded patience as they developed and while it is in Seán O’Shea Kerry trust when it comes to kicking 45s, like the northern duo Murphy offers another option further from the posts.
Whether O’Connor intends alternating Murphy and Rathmore man Ryan, who was on the bench against Kildare, remains to be seen, but in the McGrath Cup the former started two of the three games, the first against Limerick and the final win over Cork. With Kealy on board again and Diarmuid Murphy a selector once more, he and Ryan don’t just have support but men who also had to bide their time before becoming first choice.
In October 2018, Murphy spoke of his gratitude to Dr Crokes after he transferred to them from Kilcummin two years earlier. “I was badly stuck at the time and they really helped me out. I'm indebted to them, really. They gave me a second chance. I was gone, otherwise. I was going nowhere, they gave me the chance and I took it.”
He’ll be hoping to say the same about O’Connor later this year.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
