McGee says Donegal hope to re-introduce Murphy in 'the next couple of weeks'

Neil McGee admits that Donegal supporters might have to wait a bit to see Michael Murphy back in action for the county.

After rejoining the panel two years after retiring, Murphy sat out Donegal's 0-20 to 0-16 win over Dublin in Ballybofey on Saturday night and McGee, who is on the backroom team of manager Jim McGuinness, spoke of the former captain to TG4 in the pre-match.

“He’s trained very well. Obviously, he’s been out for two years,” McGee said. “So in terms of getting up to the speed of things, it’s probably going to take him a bit longer. He’s not involved in the squad tonight, but hopefully in the next couple of weeks he’s going to be back involved.

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“Obviously, everybody knows the kind of player Michael is and the one thing we seen from all the games last week is the best players are still the best players, and that’s going to stand no matter what way the game goes.”

Donegal take on Kerry in Killarney on Saturday, following the postponement of the original fixture on weekend one of Division 1 as a result of Storm Éowyn. Jack O'Connor's team produced a smash-and-grab victory at Celtic Park against Derry in their first outing, winning 5-15 to 1-24, having trailed by five points with four minutes to go, only to pinch the win with two goals in 23 seconds from Donal O'Sullivan and Paul Geaney.

McGuinness, who guided Donegal to three Ulster crowns and the 2012 All-Ireland SFC in his first tenure in charge, admitted following his reappointment that he “half-tortured” his former captain to return to the set-up before he eventually did in November. The Ulster SFC preliminary round clash with Derry, which will take place on Sunday, April 6, is the day McGuinness has marked on his calendar for all his panel.

“He did nick his hamstring when he came in first but he’s fine now,” McGuinness said of Murphy last month. “He’s in that same phase as Odhran McFadden-Ferry, Eoghan McGettigan and those sort of players. It’s about getting them up to a level. If we have to hold people back and play 25 minutes or hold them back a couple of games, that’s what we’re going to do. Sport science is a big part of it now and we just wanna make sure that everybody is in the right place.

“We’re going to have seven brilliant games in Division 1 and we need to use those games as well as possible to get as many players in as good a position as possible for Derry. It'll never change for us. There's two championships - Ulster the championship and once that's over, it's All-Ireland.”