Murphy: 'Maybe it was time to pass on penalties'

Michael Murphy has explained his reasoning for not taking Donegal’s penalty in today’s draw with Mayo.

The Donegal skipper was playing his 167th senior match from the county and took a penalty in only his second outing in the 2007 All-Ireland qualifiers against Westmeath.

Today, though, it was Patrick McBrearty who took Donegal’s penalty when Murphy was fouled by Stephen Cohen - who picked up a second yellow card - in the 53rd minute and Rob Hennelly saved from the Kilcar forward.

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Donegal were 0-9 to 0-6 in front at the time before Murphy increased the lead to four with the 45 that followed, only for Mayo to storm back and grab an 0-11 to 0-11 draw.

“It’s one of those things,” Murphy told Ocean FM afterwards. “I thought at the time I had a few misses and maybe it was time to pass it on. It’s not that you don’t want to take responsibility. Patrick is an accomplished striker of the ball and no doubt he will be able to take them and push forward for us.”

There was disappointment etched on the faces of the Donegal players afterwards having led Mayo by five points on the occasions during the contest at Markievicz Park only to leave with a draw.

“We knew coming down here a win wasn’t going to make your season and a defeat wasn’t either but it would’ve been nice to have seen it out,” Murphy added. “It wasn’t to be but we’re up and running and we’ve the first game under our belt.

“It’s nice to get back out there and to get playing. It was a good, hard game there against Mayo. There was a lot of very good stuff there today and hopefully we can build on that now in the weeks going forward. There’s plenty out there to be happy and content with and I’m sure Mayo will be happier with the second half. We were nearly out the back. We created enough to tap over another few scores.”

Donegal were 0-7 to 0-3 in front at the break and that advantage might well have been more had it not been for Hennelly, who made good first half saves from both Ódhrán McFadden-Ferry and Michael Langan.

“We had a couple of half goal chances there,” Murphy added. “The ball was breaking in there around the square. Listen, Mayo in the second half. They could argue that they had a few chances too and blazed them over the ‘bar or whatever. There were tricky conditions. It was windy and it was blustery.”

Frenetic finish sees Mayo grasp a draw from Donegal's pocket

Donegal were five points ahead of Mayo three times over the course of the Allianz League Division 1 opener at Markievicz Park yet headed back through Barnesmore with a share of the spoils

Margins are always thin in Division 1 and the first weekend of fixtures showed that in spades, with Tyrone and Monaghan also ending in a draw, while Kildare shared the spoils with Kerry. This coming Sunday Kildare are in Ballybofey.

“The league is brilliant,” he added. ”Players throughout the country will tell you if you lose a game you have the chance to put it right the week after and there’s a chance to get q bit of momentum. Everyone loves the league format. We’ll get on the road again in front of a home crowd and push on.”