Murphy:'If you were to sit and think about it, you’d pinch yourself a wee bit more'

Michael Murphy says his comeback might force him to pinch himself - once he gets the time!

Donegal defeated Monaghan 1-26 to 1-20 in Saturday’s All-Ireland quarter-final after trailing by seven points at the break and now the side managed by Jim McGuinness have a semi-final to look forward to against Meath the weekend after next.

Murphy stepped away from inter-county football at the end of the 2022 campaign and away from the pitch with Glenswilly and the Donegal U-15s spent the bulk of two years working in punditry. The thought of winning matches at Croke Park had passed him by, having to be content with the video clips and scrapbooks from yesteryear.

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However, it became known late last year that Murphy was coming back to play for Donegal, who have enjoyed and sometimes endured a gruelling championship thus far. Saturday’s victory at Croke Park was their eighth victory from nine games in 12 weeks.

“It’s funny, the year now is so quick, I’m sure you guys experience it as well,” Murphy told the assembled media at Croke Park. “You have no time to sit and recollect and I think that’s a blessing to be honest. A year down the line and you’re out playing at Croke Park again. If you were to sit and think about it, you’d pinch yourself a wee bit more.”

With Murphy having debuted as a 17-year-old back in 2007, his experience in a Donegal jersey is second to none and it was needed against Monaghan, who left the field at half-time to a standing ovation with goalkeeper Rory Beggan having kicked a monster two-pointer.

“It’s cliché stuff but you just stay in the moment,” Murphy continued. “Keep chipping and chipping away. The game is so long now. It probably always was long but it just feels longer now and you just feel if you keep hanging in there and when you’re on top in games, you keep the toe down.

“That’s a big mindset shift from years ago when you got a four-point lead in a championship game, you were able to keep the ball and play the clock down and able to take people off on the break.

“But now you just have to keep attacking and we knew that when we were seven down that we just had to keep getting our hands on the back and keep sticking to the processes that have helped us all year.

“Getting our hands on the ball from our own kick-out was a difficulty. But any time we did attack, we were getting in, and we had a good goal chance at one stage and we did take points relatively well.

“But we got more hands on the ball in the second half from both the Monaghan kick-out and our own kick-out and as a result we were able to get more scoring opportunities. We took them and Conor O’Donnell and Michael Langan and Patrick McBrearty when he came in there, Ciaran Thompson did some really good scoring.

“There was a really good effort in that second half. It would have been easy to lie down. I think it went to seven at half-time but to come back from there was positive.”

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Murphy laid on the all-important goal for Langan on 44 minutes, which pushed the accelerator on Donegal’s comeback, although was modest to admit the St Michael’s man, who was making his 100th appearance for Donegal.

“I’m delighted for him,” Murphy added. “I didn’t do any setting up! He set it up himself with a great shimmy and a great dummy and down the middle and away he went. One hundred appearances is a brilliant achievement for him and his family and all his club.”