Murphy: 'Doctors were unsure if I would ever play again'

Last October, Lorcan Murphy suffered not just a career-threatening injury but one that could have left him paralysed.

BACK FROM THE BRINK: Lorcan Murphy of Ireland celebrates a first half score during the FIBA EuroBasket 2025 Pre-Qualifier First Round Group A match between Ireland and Switzerland at National Basketball Arena in Dublin. Pic: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile

ANYONE who’s ever watched Lorcan Murphy dunk in a Templeogue or Ireland singlet knows he’s a 6’2” guard who defies his stature.

His spectacular ability to smash and grab and reverse lay-up off a languid drive ‘n glide is often attributed to him being a former high jump champion.

Several trademark moves in his 12 points against Croatia last week raised the roof at the National Basketball Arena and Ireland will be hoping for more there today (Live TG4, 7:15pm) when they take on Luxembourg in the final game of their 2025 Eurobasket Pre-Qualifying campaign.

But Murphy’s latest brilliance didn’t just typically defy gravity - it defied expert medical opinion.

Last October he suffered not just a career-threatening injury but one that could have left him paralysed.

“I was just in the gym, getting off the mats that you lay down for core exercises and they kinda slipped out from under me. My feet went up and I rolled back. At the time I felt my back crack and I got up and drove home.” 

He went to work next day and intended training that evening even though his neck had locked up but his mother persuaded him to get it checked out.

As soon as he was x-rayed doctors exclaimed 'how are you still walking?’ and put him on the flat of his back for a week of extensive tests.

He had broken three bones in two vertebrae - the C5 and C6 - in his neck.

“A centimetre either way they said and you’d have been paralysed so I was extremely lucky though it didn’t feel like it at the time. 

“At the time they (doctors) were unsure if I would ever even play again.” 

They predicted an 18-month layoff and he was in a full body brace for the first three.

As he tends to do in life, Murphy (28) defied expectations.

Even in the brace he started doing light exercise and when he cast it off felt good enough to go shooting hoops though avoided any contact practice for a few more weeks.

A month after removing the brace the hospital called to say he could now start going for physio. When he told them he was already back playing they were gobsmacked.

Eighteen months? He was back playing inside five and even in time for a few late-season games with the club.

Seriously, has he some kind of freaky body or just a mind of steel?

“Maybe a bit of both!” Murphy laughs, stressing that he was painstaking and meticulous about sleep and nutrition during his recovery.

He also leaned on some sports psychology tools previously picked up from former Dublin football star Kevin McManamon.

“Kevin had done some work with Templeogue before and, to this day, I still use all the tips and tricks he has given us. He touched base with me as well when it happened to check on me. I’m very grateful for that and those tools.” 

But those first two months were “grim and dark” for even someone as phlegmatic as Murphy.

“At first I was just so shocked I didn’t even think about basketball or playing. I was just thinking ‘Oh my God, that’s like life-changing stuff potentially!’ 

“After a week or two I was so bored I went back to work and that actually helped, just not staring at the ceiling every day, to be able to get up and do stuff and throw myself into art though I was still quite confined.” 

The art wasn’t therapeutic, it’s both his career and passion and the reason Murphy didn’t take up scholarship offers from US colleges.

He just wanted to study pure art so went to IADT in Dun Laoghaire and did a Masters in Education at NCAD. He teaches art full-time in Loreto Foxrock but also takes private commissions, largely for human and animal portraits, though seascapes and landscapes are his personal favourites.

“I like to have different dimensions to myself. I think they can go hand-in-hand, that you can play at a high-ish level and still work and do your own creative stuff. That’s the joy I find in life,” he explains without a trace of hubris.

To his mates and teammates he is simply ‘Duck’.

A mate once gave him a pet duck as a birthday present, he called it Vincent and, deciding it was lonely, purchased it a male companion… only ‘Vincent’ then laid eggs and hatched ducklings so now his garden houses a pond and a gang of them.

He’s also unusual as an amateur able to hold his own in an increasingly professional Irish team; emblematic of both an individual and collective that is starting to punch above their weight since returning to the higher level of European competition.

They’ve already beaten Luxembourg by 20. After losing to Croatia by 40 points they stuck within one or two baskets of them until the 27th minute of the re-match.

Win today and they’ll bow out second in their group, one place higher than seeded.

“I’ve been on the team since Small Nations (championships). We didn’t place in that, then we finished third, then we won it and now we’re out of it into Eurobasket Qualifiers. This is another step forward. You have to take the lumps on the way. The path to take is just keep going.

“Right now we’re a mix - some full-time pros, some part-time, some in college (USA) and some full-time workers. It will (eventually) go to the point where everyone on the team is professional and playing at that high, high level.” 

Right now Duck is happy to be back; fully healthy, still defying gravity and happily contributing to his eventual international demise.