Ciara Murphy: 'Darragh Long and Declan Quill have brought us to a whole new level'

"Two All-Ireland and two league finals and we won two of them as well so they have improved Kerry ladies football immensely” said the Kerry full-back.

Ciara Murphy during the National League Division 1 Final against Galway at Croke Park.

A Division 1 opener against Dublin in January is no place to make up for an All-Ireland final defeat but it will lance the boil for Kerry’s Ciara Murphy.

Saturday's game, if it survives the cold weather, will help in the recovery from losing last August, a second successive defeat on the ultimate stage.

Ask Murphy to compare the 2022 and ’23 reverses against Meath and Dublin and you imagine recency bias will kick on. Indeed, the defender chooses the latest setback as the harshest but for a different reason.

“Yeah, definitely last year hurt the most. I think because Meath were in a transition phase they were really hard to stop. No team could stop them that year – they just had that system.

“The way they played, their fitness, everything was just mind-blowing really, and they deserved it. They came up from intermediate and won the All Irelands and fair play to them but last year was gutting really, really disappointing.

“We’d have played Dublin in the league and in the group stage of championship as well and we had beaten them twice. We knew they were going to bring it up a notch and we knew it was in them as well, so we weren’t naive or anything but maybe Dublin had learned a lot more from those two previous meetings with us, and they just came out of the blocks that day all guns blazing the first 15 minutes and pinned us down everywhere on the field and we couldn’t get going.” 

 Just how important was it that joint-managers Darragh Long and Declan Quill chose to stay on for a fifth season? Vital, says Murphy. “When I started playing with Kerry ladies, I’d say the quarter-finals was the furthest I’d got and it was great, the lads came in and brought us to a whole new level. Two All-Ireland and two league finals and we won two of them as well so they have improved Kerry ladies football immensely.” Murphy admits part of their appeal is the style of football they espouse. “Very few teams at the moment are playing open football. A lot of teams are playing defensive football, over and back the field, but we like to move the ball quick, let the ball do the work.

“We are a kicking team, I suppose. Even with the men’s teams now, it is very much over and back, it is defensive, it is tough to watch, it can get boring so even we hear from people on the streets around Killarney and Tralee, ‘We like the way ye play, we watch more ladies football because of ye’ and that’s great to hear.” It appeals to the likes of her uncle Colm Cooper who has been an obvious influence on her career. “When we used to go into my nan's house in Ardshanavooly (in Killarney), he was living there at the time. I was in there nearly every second day. He had a big influence on my career.

“I would have been supporting him since I was two or three. I've travelled the length and breadth of the country supporting him, and he does the same for me when he can, coming up to the big games. He was at the two All-Irelands in Croke Park the last two years.

“Every now and again, he can give back. He always reminds me of a few things as well, like I would have reminded him when he was playing! Where I can improve or just small little details that will help.”