‘Even with Jim McGuinness back, there was never a chance of retirement U-turn’ – Michael Murphy

At 34, he remains one of the best – if not the best – club footballer(s) in the county. He and Jim McGuinness are close.

McGuinness, for his part, is too determined and too persuasive a man to turn down.

Why, for that matter, would McGuinness look to build a ‘privacy’ fence around the team’s training pitch in Convoy, if not to keep Murphy’s return a secret?

It wasn’t as if Murphy faded away. He remained the most important and influential player on the Donegal panel when he retired in November of last year.

Plus, even with so many miles in his legs, could you conceive of a better target man than Michael Murphy, excused from the exertions of playing in the middle third and tracking back?

Sure, he wouldn’t even need to be involved until some time around the end of the league. An extended break to get himself into shape.

All very logical? Maybe. But all completely irrelevant, as Murphy outlined.

For 16 years in a row, Murphy was there on day one of any new season.

He couldn’t do it another way if he tried.

“For me, that’s the way I prepared,” he explained. “It had to be that way. I did it one year where I came back in January, missed the start of the league and it just didn’t work for me. Its all in. All duck or no dinner.

“Playing in McKenna Cup games, playing in the National Leagues games. That’s how I felt I needed to prepare. That’s probably down to my own head. It probably wasn’t the best way to do things.

“But for me, it was the way I had to do it. And that’s the way I would have had to do it last year. And that’s why last year, when I decided to retire, I just can’t give it that. I just couldn’t do that half in/half out thing.

“And,” he went on, “that thing about full-forward. Like, in the modern game, you can’t do that anymore. Watch the All-Ireland final out here . . . it was an incredible display of full-forward play from the Dublin full-forward line.

“I’ve never seen anything like it. From Con O’Callaghan, Mannion, Basquel – the tracking and the running was incredible. And that’s the way the game is now.

“The idea that you throw yourself in there and just rest up, it’s just not like that anymore. The day a team does that, I think they’ll be found out. Imagine the likes of a Derry, with Conor McCloskey running you up the other way getting goals. It doesn’t work that way.”

Murphy didn’t deny that McGuinness had been in touch but added that contact between the two of them tended to be regular anyway. He also stressed that his status as a former inter-county player was never contingent on who was manager of Donegal.

“Being honest. When I finished up two years ago, I knew it was over,” he elaborated. “It didn’t wane for me. Everybody I met in the street said it would but apart from that, my reasons for leaving for the time – and they still are there – I wasn’t able to give it the same level I used to give it.

“That had nothing to do with managers, it had nothing to do with playing group, it just came down to me and what I felt I could bring to the party. So even with Jim coming in, it didn’t change. It didn’t change one iota.

“I know that sounds fairly cold. But for me to give what’s needed for Donegal, whether it was Paddy Carr and Aidan O’Rourke or whether it’s Jim McGuinness, it’s down to the hard question and I had to answer that right.

“We chat and we do speak quite a bit, every other week. I know he’s really, really excited by it. I know everybody in Donegal is really excited by it.”

Murphy also outlined why the perimeter fence in Convoy was essential for privacy.

It was reported last week that a London-based fundraising group for Donegal football were asked to raise €55,000 to pay for its construction.

Murphy said the floodlit pitch in Convoy is currently “extremely exposed”.

“On a Saturday, Sunday morning it’s grand because it’s light. You can use the other four pitches there. But there’s been a new pitch recently installed, which is pitch 5, with lights there.

“As I say, at the moment, when you’re up there training, there could be three or four teams using them a night. A six to half seven slot. A half seven to nine slot.

“So there could be two teams per pitch, multiplied by three pitches. I suppose just having your own space at that level is what you’re probably looking for.”