Michael Murphy is sitting across the table discussing his retirement. He’s a former Donegal footballer now. No longer out in the chaos of it all, the game’s majestic stardust-doused wrecking ball. No, he’ll be an analyst for the 2023 championship.
Which would be kind of like Messi doing punditry for this World Cup and telling lads they are doing goodish at football. All the while knowing they aren’t doing it quite as goodish as he still could.
But that’s the road Murphy is about to travel. There is no question that physically he could go again. He sits there still carrying the same powerful frame, sporting the same indestructible Desperate Dan-esque jaw and holding court with the same strong, quiet presence that made him the longest-serving intercounty football captain.
He’s 33, so age is not an insurmountable barrier. But he made his senior debut for Donegal as a teenager in 2007. Between then and now, well that’s a lot of mileage for even the most powerful of engines.
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After Donegal’s All-Ireland SFC qualifier loss to Armagh in Clones last June, Murphy was the last player to leave the dressingroom. And something inside pushed him to travel back up the road with his parents.
“In all of my days playing I would have gone home on the team bus, but that day I went home with the parents,” recalls Murphy. “They probably had a good idea, a good sense of me too.
“I met the father outside and normally I’d give him the bag to bring home or that type of thing, but that time I was bringing it home myself. I threw it in the boot and went home with him.
“I shared my first drive up there with him and I’ll probably share my last drive with him, that kind of way. Listen, I asked myself, ‘why did I do that?’
“Was it a selfish thing to leave the team that time? Potentially, but that was the decision I came to at that time. It probably further underlined that was my first step towards detaching.
“You were waiting to wake up some morning to see would something change over the intervening months but there was no difference in opinion or mindset.”
He announced his retirement on November 16th, just over three weeks after Paddy Carr had been appointed Donegal manager. But Murphy insists his decision had nothing to do with who succeeded Declan Bonner, a process that seemed needlessly drawn out.
“No, nothing at all. And I need to stress that, no matter who was managing Donegal, I wouldn’t have been playing,” he says.
“People looking at that from the outside may see that as a reasoning, that delay, but it wasn’t. I was delaying the thing myself.
“For me to give Paddy Carr what was required this year, I just knew myself in my heart I wasn’t going to be able to.
“It’s a difficult thing to say after all those years but that’s essentially where it is at. I’m content with that now, I’ll be there as a Donegal supporter, I started as a Donegal supporter.”
Even if Jim McGuinness had returned?
“No is the definite answer. I’m not in a position where I am able to give what I know I need to give.
“Some players can manage and mind themselves at the beginning of the year, maybe take a Tuesday out or a Thursday off. That would absolutely craw at me, I would be an Antichrist around the place. I wouldn’t be an influence. I wouldn’t be doing Donegal a service.”
Murphy, who captained Donegal from 2011 until the defeat to Armagh this summer, spoke with Carr before making his decision public. He retired with one All-Ireland and five Ulster titles. But regrets? Well, he has a few – not least failure to land a second Sam Maguire.
“2014 is a big one, definitely, it stands out. And the Ulsters, a couple of them. Not taking credit away from any of the winners of those games, that’s important, but there were times when we didn’t just perform.
“Every year from 2014, to not get to an All-Ireland semi-final thereafter, it was always difficult to take year on year.”
One of the talking points that followed him around was his positioning – whether he should play midfield or full forward or both. Everybody seemed to have an opinion, but Murphy himself largely batted it away when asked throughout his career. But now he is retired?
“It was a constant one,” he admits. “But within the group, it was never an issue. The way the game is played now, it’s fairly fluid.
“From an early age, I didn’t want to be pigeonholed. From the early days of watching Donegal teams, or even playing myself, if you found yourself at full forward, you’re out of the game. And that was you forever more then.
“I said I needed to try to equip myself with a few more arrows, to potentially give something towards the team, whether that be defending, whether that be in the middle sector. And be a bit more flexible for the team or the management to be able to utilise me.”
He says he wouldn’t have the energy to become a manager straight away. For 2023 his intercounty involvement will be as an analyst with GAAGO.
“The decision to retire is the right one for me and the team, so that I’m not lingering there in any half-arsed way,” he reckons. “That they can get on with it for the new season, to push Donegal forward.”
Not that Michael Murphy would have held them back.
Donegal’s greatest ever. One of the game’s greatest.
Now an ex-intercounty footballer.
It still doesn’t feel real.
*Murphy was speaking at the launch of GAAGO’s championship coverage. GAAGO will stream 38 exclusive live championship matches in 2023.
