Colm O'Rourke opinion on Michael Murphy doesn't measure up says Dick Clerkin

Sport pundits have to keep themselves relevant nowadays and most feel the need to grab headlines from time to time. It happened on RTÉ on Sunday when Colm O'Rourke and Sean Cavanagh were previewing the Donegal-Derry Ulster final and O'Rourke, normally a conservative operator, felt the need to downgrade Donegal captain, Michael Murphy, as something of an also-ran when it comes to the best players of the last 10-12 years.

O'Rourke had a stand-up argument with Cavanagh on the issue with the Tyrone man backing Murphy and saying O'Rourke's argument about Dublin  players Brian Fenton and Ciarán Kilkenny was not taking into account the all-round strength of the teams - Dublin and Donegal.

The former Meath star felt the best players are those who performed at the highest levels on a continuous basis in semi-finals and finals (in Croke Park); not in Clones, not in Ballybofey.

It was cringing stuff and brings into question what planet Colm O'Rourke has been living on for the last 10-12 years.

To get a neutral view on the discussion we contacted someone who has both played against and has watched Michael Murphy over that time. Dick Clerkin played 179 times for Monaghan from 1999 to 2016 and is now a columnist with the Irish Independent and in a good position to reflect on Colm O'Rourke's view.

"To measure great players to only those who have consistently played in and won All-Irelands is a very, very unfair measure.

"At the end of the day a player is very much dependant on the team that they play with as much as their own ability. It's not like other sports, where you can move around and transfer to a team and you are always playing at the elite level. You have to stick to your own, better or worse.

"And while Donegal have a very strong and competitive panel, I think the measure of Michael Murphy is if you took Michael Murphy out of Donegal for the last 10-12 years or whatever, what would they have won?

"And then I would ask the same question for the players that Colm O'Rourke is putting ahead of him, a Brian Fenton, a  (Ciarán) Kilkenny  or whoever, great players. Take them out of the team, Dublin would probably have won as much as they did.

"I think that's the measure of Michael Murphy for me; not comparing him to those players who benefited from being part of great teams," says Clerkin, who agreed that in the era where Kerry went through a bad patch, Maurice Fitzgerald was still regarded as one of the players of his era.

"It depends on where you are coming from. I suppose if you are trying to make a simplistic point as Colm O'Rourke was trying to do to score points, it's a very poor argument to be making.

"If you were going to pick your top five players of the last 10 years, you would be doing very well not to have Michael Murphy in it. I think it is very unfair to judge a player on what they done in an All-Ireland final day, which was a crude measure that Colm O'Rourke was making.

"To me it is what he has achieved with his club, what he has achieved as a leader, as a captain, as a college player. Michael Murphy has covered all bases during his tenure; international rules captain.

"He didn't have the luxury or privilege to focus in one team that was full of exceptional players that for all intents and purposes a lot of those Dublin players that Colm O'Rourke mentioned have to worry about. They didn't even have to worry about winning a Leinster championship.

"I think it was a very narrow measure and a very unfair one," says Clerkin.

An alternative view: Donegal can't scale Derry's walls - and now the climb steepens

Following a blistering run to the Ulster final, Derry were still outsiders against Donegal on Sunday and whilst their victory wasn’t a shock to many, it leaves Declan Bonner’s in a precarious position looking into the All-Ireland qualifiers, as Alan Foley explains

Following a blistering run to the Ulster final, Derry were still outsiders against Donegal on Sunday and whilst their victory wasn’t a shock, it leaves Declan Bonner’s in a precarious position looking into the All-Ireland qualifiers

MURPHY'S DONEGAL ROLE

Away from view of where Michael Murphy stands in the grand scheme of best players, Clerkin does feel that he probably could have been used more on the edge of the square in recent years.

He felt he did suffer on Sunday last because of injury and felt he could have been moved up, especially when the Derry full-back Brendan Rogers was making those late runs. 

"I was watching him and if you were to be critical of the Donegal management or even Michael himself, to sort of say, 'hold on boys, I can not run after this man; somebody tag him for the last five minutes. I'm going to go in and stand at the edge of the square because that's all I can do'. That would be a fair criticism.

"You could argue that Rogers' runs was the winning of the game. He could see that Murphy was struggling and made the runs," said Clerkin, who added that Murphy felt he had to stay on. "And it wasn't as if everyone around him was full of running; everybody was dropping at that stage."

But Clerkin feels that Donegal may have missed a trick in the last number of years.

"Whatever about the argument about last Sunday, I do feel  there were games that he could have been effective at the edge of the square, even for parts of games. There are very few full-backs who would be happy to see him there. It has surprised me, especially with the mark there, that Donegal haven't tried to utilise him more, especially in tight games."

Clerkin is aware that the Donegal game is based on possession with very little kicking and it is something that is part of the game at present.

"I take the U-15s here in Monaghan and I purposefully coach them to kick the ball. It is easy to coach players not to kick the ball accurately; it is very difficult to have the discipline and confidence to develop the skill, the accuracy to look up to kick a pass.

"I don't think it has helped Donegal."

But as for Michael Murphy's legacy for Donegal, Dick Clerkin has one memory.

"When he does hang up the boots and they play the highlight reel, the standout highlight will be that goal he scored in 2012, long ball in, edge of the square, turn, bang. Isn't it an awful crime that hasn't really happened more often."