GRASPING for one moment that stands out amid a catalogue of Michael Murphy memories, Paddy McBrearty pauses for thought.
The 2012 All-Ireland final?
“Aye… he was brilliant that day”
The downing of the Dubs in 2014? Kerry in the Super 8s a few years back? The cheeks are puffed out and eyes stare into space as the thought process continues on for a few more seconds.
Then bang.
“Kildare, 2011,” says McBrearty emphatically, “he’s probably the only man I’ve seen play through… I mean, he was gone like.”
For the Kilcar man and other members of the Donegal panel who watched on as a hamstring injury hindered Murphy’s preparation, resulting in him starting that All-Ireland quarter-final on the bench, his performance remains up there with anything before or since.
It could be bittersweet for McBrearty too, but it isn’t. He had given way for Murphy before half-time and the Glenswilly man, despite visibly struggling, kicked three points as a war of attrition unfolded.
Yet it was a moment during the drama of stoppage time in extra-time which defined all that Michael Murphy is about. Ten years on, everybody remembers Kevin Cassidy’s winning score, and so they should – but it wouldn’t have happened without the brains, the brawn and the brilliance of the man with 14 on his back.
“If you look back at that game,” recalls McBrearty, “Christy [Toye] played it into him, it was a bad ball - there was two men right up Michael. But he does a flick up down the sideline and got out.
“I’m telling you now, it is an underrated moment the way that man flicked the ball up and got around three or four Kildare players, and eventually it ended up with Kevin.
“Michael had been injured in training, he had no right to play, then he goes and does that. Ah, there’s been countless moments…”
Just 17, McBrearty was the bright new thing in Jim McGuinness’s Donegal set-up then - but it was Murphy who blazed a trail as the Tir Chonaill’s original man-child, having made his debut against Leitrim in 2007, soon living up to his billing as a star in the making.
From their first meeting, though, until McBrearty and Murphy last shared a changing room in June’s All-Ireland qualifier defeat to Armagh, those same characteristics that set him apart were there to see.
“Like any young fella in Donegal, Michael Murphy was the man.
“At my first training session as a 17-year-old, Michael came over and shook my hand. He introduced himself… I was like ‘I know who you are, don’t worry!’ But that’s how humble he was.
“The whole way through he would be like that with everyone. Even to this day, and I’ve played with him for 12 years, you would still have that respect for him. Any time he spoke, you shut up and listened. When he walked into the room, things got a wee bit tense out of pure respect that everybody had for him.
“He always had that presence – that’s why Jim made him captain when he was 21. For a 21-year-old to be going in and captaining a senior county team, that would be unheard of now. Then to stay there all this time and still have the same effect.
“Usually after three or four years it’s changed but it was never once talked about in our dressing room that there should be another captain. It was always Michael. On and off the field, it was him.”
And while McGuinness created a culture that would deliver Donegal back to Gaelic football’s top table, it was Murphy who maintained those standards even after the Glenties man had headed off for pastures new.
McBrearty saw it day in, day out. No slacking, no half measures. As a managerial career surely looms, all the tools are already in place to succeed.
But the memories of the magic on the field will never fade.
“The foundations that Jim laid down, Michael upheld them.
“Whenever Michael does go into management, I can see him being a carbon copy of Jim, in terms of his leadership, the way he commands things, his attention to detail… Michael learned a lot from Jim.
“In terms of someone setting the standard, it was Michael every single night. He was the first there, literally the last to leave. He saw it as his duty as captain to do everything that was asked of him.
“When you take everything into account, if you went into a lab and put all different ingredients in to generate the supreme Gaelic footballer, it would be Michael. He has the height, the physique, the two feet, the brain, the speed, the passing, the scoring, free-taking…
“If you were looking for a weakness in the man, I don’t think he has one.”
