'Back to help in every way possible': Michael Murphy conducts the Donegal tune again

In 2009, Jim McGuinness was mulling over an approach to become the Donegal Under-21 manager.

He’d been knocked back, twice, after applying for the senior job, and his trust in Donegal football and its processes had evaporated.

Brian McEniff, his old mentor who had him on the 1992 All-Ireland winning squad as a teenager, was giving him gentle persuasion.

McGuinness was weighing up the possibilities when his father-in-law, Colm McFadden senior, effectively made the decision for him. It was a rather to-the-point assessment from McFadden, who had helped coach St Eunan’s College teams in the MacLarnon and MacRory Cups, which featured a young Michael Murphy: “For fuck’s sake, Murphy is worth two men to you."

Two years ago, Murphy hung up the inter-county boots on a day the music appeared to die for Donegal - a hammering by Armagh in a qualifier in Clones. 

And, yet, here he is, back conducting the orchestra for McGuinness again. Last summer, McGuinness knew he needed to add something else. He needed Murphy.

“It’s just to be part of it,” Murphy says after posting six points in a memorable 3-26 to 0-15 win over Meath in the All-Ireland quarter-final. 

“It’s just being part of the team. That’s what I’ve enjoyed so far, being back here. You’re just part of the group, part of the team. You’re a cog in the wheel.”

Murphy took time before fully committing. He road tested body and mind in the autumn of 2024 and confirmed to McGuinness: The band was back together again.

“A conversation a couple of weeks after changed that,” he says. “Since then, it’s been crazy. I just want to keep living where I’m at. Sometime I’ll look back. 

“I wanted to see could I get the body into shape, or at least into a place that was half-right.

“Everybody is a cog in the wheel now. It’s how do we help the team be in the best possible position to win a game.

“Whatever you can give for as long as you can give, you’ll give it.”

Sean MacCumhaill Park has rarely head a din as on that February night when Murphy, in the 44th minute of a Division 1 game against Armagh, made his return.

Murphy has now scored a whopping 34 goals and 665 points in Donegal’s colours.  He has appeared in 190 games.

Only Neil McGee, his old team-mate and now on the Donegal backroom team, has played more games - 195. No-one has scored more.

It was in the 2017 Ulster Championship win over Antrim – when he scored six points – that Murphy bypassed Colm McFadden’s tally of 25-438 as Donegal’s top scorer.

In their first year, McGuinness - with Murphy as his captain - took Donegal to the Ulster U21 title and within the width of a crossbar of toppling Dublin in the All-Ireland final.

McGuinness and Murphy were joined at the hip when spearheading a golden age that yielded three Ulster titles and Sam Maguire between 2011 and 2014.

Last year, Murphy had a birdseye view from the BBC commentary box as McGuinness began to weave the magic wand again and the All-Ireland assault fell short against Galway in a semi-final.

He’ll be 36 next month, but Murphy appears to have wound the clock back. He is leaner now, stronger and sharper, too. Some of his passages on Sunday were like he had the baton in hand and the chords danced to his tune around Croke Park.

He says: “I was coming back to help in every way possible that I could. Whether it was for five minutes in a game, whether it was to help training, whether it was whatever else - that’s really what was in my head. You probably weren’t going to be back the same way you were, that’s always the way it is when you push on in years and you’re not playing football for a couple of years.

“So I’ve made peace with that and that’s what I continue to make peace with. It’s just: What way can you help the team? What way can you help the county? That’s the kind of mindset that I was on and that I probably still am in.”

Murphy loves his place, Donegal. But he loves this other place, this often otherworldly sphere that McGuinness’s teams seem to operate from.

“The journey is happening and we’re on it,” the Glenswilly man says. “We’re not spending time to think about what it’s like or what it is. We’re just here in the present.

“We’ll get up the road now, get at it, get ready. Paddy (McBrearty) spoke very well there as captain in terms of the stuff that All-Irelands bring, the silly stuff and stupid stuff, enjoyable stuff and energy-sapping stuff. You’re trying to just bring whatever you can bring to that. Get the head right, the body right and push on again.

“Kerry will be an incredible challenge. We need to get our house in order and see what kind of battle we can bring to the game.”

Read next: Jim McGuinness hails new Donegal depth as All-Ireland final looms

It’s three years now since McGuinness, then a GAA columnist in The Irish Times, predicted Murphy’s future.

“To be honest I think the best of Michael Murphy may be about to come,” he wrote. “Except this time he will have a decade and a half of brilliance under his belt. Returning home to full-forward is still somewhere in the future for Michael Murphy. What a treat.”

The encore has yet to strike up.