McHugh: ‘When Michael Murphy walks into a room you stop, and you listen'

There are few players who would have known each other better on the field of play than Ryan McHugh and Michael Murphy. 

McHugh joined up with the Donegal panel the year after Murphy missed Sam Maguire and together the duo have Lined out alongside together for the past decade.

“We have been through the trenches enough, so we have and since 2013 Michael has been nothing but exceptional to me as a player and to the other players and to the whole of the county. 

“As players me and Michael had a good relationship, and we knew how each other liked to play and what our strengths were and it fed off that. 

“Michael Murphy is a phenomenal person and a phenomenal footballer, and we are so very lucky that he was born and reared in Donegal and what he has given to the county has been nothing short of amazing. We will be forever grateful”. 

Both are exceptionally driven, gifted players and were a deadly duo in Donegal’s famous defeat of Dublin in the All-Ireland semi-final of 2014.  McHugh found the net twice and Murphy was majestic, and they had an almost telepathic understanding. 

“We were all on top of our game that day and none more so than Michael,” McHugh added. “But there were a lot of different games that we gelled well. We trained hard and went at it and as a player Michael was always the player I looked up to. 

“From a leader and player point of view both on and off the field Michael was the man I tried to copy. It was the way he lived his life so professionally and I like to think that I have learned a lot from him” 

Besides being Donegal’s captain and a supremely gifted player on the pitch, Murphy was a leader off of it and someone McHugh built up a strong friendship with.

“There have been great tributes to him as a player but having known him personally and very well and the big thing about him is that he is a really nice person,” he added.

“Don’t get me wrong, he played the game on the edge, and he played to win but off the field he was nothing but a gentleman and would have given you the shirt off his back. “He was very close to all the players, not just me”. 

Murphy was captain from 2011 to 2022 and for McHugh and his comrades, tjey would not have had it any other way.

“He was our leader and we rowed in behind him,” McHugh said. “We had other leaders on the pitch, and we tried to encourage more leaders, but it was Michael that led all of that. 

“It was him that helped create the other leaders within the squad and tried to develop people. He was our main man and when things were not going well, he was the man we looked to and more often than not he showed up and he dug us out of a lot of holes”. 

Murphy is now looking after the Glenswilly minors and McHugh believes he has all the attributes to have a successful future on the sidelines.

“He has all the attributes for it, and he certainly knows the modern game inside out,” McHugh said. “He has played it and he has lived it and he had that presence about him that would make a great manager. 

“When Michael Murphy walks into a room you stop, and you listen to what he has to say, and I think that is what is so unique about him, and it takes a special kind of person to have that aura. 

“I hope from a Donegal point of view that he gets involved, whether that is senior or underage and I think he would be great.  He has great pride and passion for his county, and he loves his club county more than anything in the world. So, I definitely do think that he will get involved and it will be great for Donegal whenever he does.”