The people who seek out Murphy during the week will also look for him on days like these, providing his most eloquent answers. Leaping, soaring, catching. Pitted once more against Darragh Ó Sé and adding another gilded page to a rivalry that has earned its footnote in an epic history.
For years Ó Sé has spent the beginning of the summer measuring himself against Murphy. Some days he has climbed. Other days, Murphy has gone even higher. For almost a decade he has lived comfortably in Ó Sé’s company. In the 2005 Munster final, Murphy caught five balls over Ó Sé’s head. Ó Sé managed just one.
When Cork met Kerry in the All-Ireland semi-final, Ó Sé opted to break ball to disrupt Murphy’s rhythm.
The ultimate compliment came with a practical bent and Kerry overran their opponents.
Since then, Cork have been refreshed and reborn. The replayed Munster final represented a watershed. For much of the year the players spoke of the promise of future summers. In Kerry they watched Cork win three Munster U-21 titles in a row and braced themselves for change down the line.
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Not yet, they said, but soon. Instead, the future came hurtling towards them in July.
“We totally outplayed them (Kerry) in Killarney, in the first half especially, so we felt there was no reason why we couldn’t do it again. When we’re written off is when we play better. We have to try and improve that way as well when we go into games as favourites.
“Definitely between the two Kerry games we knew we didn’t leave it behind us. For people who wouldn’t know us too well, they might say the underdogs lost their chance. I don’t think it entered too many fellas’ heads. A lot of the players we have now have beaten Kerry at U-21 for the last three years. We feel we’ve developed as a team. We know we’re not one-hit wonders and that we can perform at that level.”
Murphy’s summer has been filled with little statements. Having matched Ó Sé in the drawn Munster final he moved to centre-forward and troubled Séamus Moynihan for a spell.
In the All-Ireland quarter- final he switched to full- forward, broke ball and fed Ger Spillane for the winning point. Cork played poorly but the team have hardened up this year. Murphy has seen bad days when the team have lost their footing and failed to stop the slide. While the Donegal performance was rejected by the public, Cork found a way to love it. “The workrate. The fact that we never give up. The last day against Donegal we showed that in a lot of ways, too. We weren’t playing well in the first half. In the second half there was a massive improvement but Donegal still went two points ahead with 10 minutes to go. Two or three years ago we might’ve fallen away, but this team has a bit of steeliness in it. We can last out games and hopefully make other teams feel that it’s hard to beat us.”
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It has taken time and patience. Defeat by Limerick in 2003 almost buried him. In 2004 he struggled to hold his place and returned in time for Fermanagh to beat Cork in Croke Park. Last season was delicately balanced between the progress made in the Munster final and against Galway in Croke Park, and the devastating damage wreaked by their loss to Kerry in the All-Ireland semi-final. The winter since hurt but hardened them, too. The fitness programme that was designed by the experts in UCD was tweaked to suit each player. Murphy pumped more weights, tidied up his diet and training regime and entered the season looking sleek.
“It (2005) was Billy (Morgan)’s first real year in charge. The year before was his first year back and he was getting used to the scenario again, but we felt we’d progressed a fair bit, up to the last game. That was a bit of a disaster. But fellas got together and every game we play we feel there’s a method to what we’re doing.
“That we’re doing something in the upward curve rather than going down. Any training session there you see fellas putting the ball over the bar from angles you wouldn’t even try in a game. But you can do what you want in training. It has to come out in a match.”
This year it took time to show itself. Five weeks of club games and disrupted training sessions prefaced their match against Limerick. A trip to La Manga condensed a month’s work into one bite-sized week but there was still concern.
“It was hard going into the game with nothing. Even with La Manga, we’d no game played together. That was a huge hindering block. No matter how many games you play in training it isn’t the same as playing another inter-county team just to see how your style is developing.
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“To be honest, we expected that kind of backlash from outside our own camp. We knew ourselves we didn’t perform. You’d like to play well but a lot of things didn’t go right for us to play well. Since then we’ve known we could improve, and we feel we have.”
He stretches out and considers the time that has passed. Ten championship seasons. One All-Ireland final. Three Munster medals. One League medal. Four All-Ireland semi- finals and the stories of his days against Darragh.
When Murphy started with Cork in 1997, Niall Cahalane was still there, Brian Corcoran and Séan Óg Ó hAilpín were splitting their time with the hurlers and the hill of Macroom was extracting a winter penance from them all.
Murphy fed off their ambition and stored the lessons away for years to come but he would always be his own man. He lopes through games. He is quieter, more measured but concedes nothing in aggression or in his presence.
“The drive of the Cahalanes and the Tompkins, that’s a different kettle of fish. I would say I’m a bit more laid back. Outwardly I wouldn’t have the same drive as them anyway, but every fella wants to win.”
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In 1998 he came on in the Munster final and shared centre field with Pat Hegarty. Since then Murphy has shared centre field with eight different partners over 30 championship games. Some, such as Micheál O’Sullivan and Derek Kavanagh, felt like long-term relationships. Others, including Dermot Hurley and Fachtna Collins, burnt out quickly. He shared defeats and hurt with them all. Losing the All-Ireland final in 1999 against Meath still sticks in his craw. History promises to treat a fine Kerry team well but Cork have had their moments, too. Still, they could have had much more.
“When fellas are finished they want to have achieved as much as he can. We feel we haven’t achieved as much as we could have. We fell short on a number of occasions. That’s something we’re trying to solve with this group of players.”
At home in Carrigaline he shared his childhood with his brother Peter. As they grew older Peter followed him into minor and U-21 teams. Under Tompkins, Peter was attached to a few substitutes benches during the League and his two starts came as replacements for his brother. “We mightn’t play together,” he said. “But at least I’ll come on for you.”
Hurling always obsessed him and now offers a valve when football starts to wear him down. After the footballers’ defeat by Fermanagh in 2004, Murphy resumed hurling with Carrigaline and was drafted into the Cork intermediate hurlers with James Masters for the All-Ireland final against Kilkenny. They won, but he knew the sensation was different for those who had worked together since the deepest winter.
“Things were disappointing on the football front and to come away with a hurling medal was nice. A lot of people have slagged me in Carrigaline over it, that I’m so long at the football and it takes me one game to win a hurling All- Ireland. Maybe that’s the route to take.”
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As a child he found heroes in far away places. Michael Jordan. Keith Wood. He saw Roy Keane once in Cork but, when he made his trip to meet the hurlers, the footballers weren’t around. In Carrigaline Community School his sporting interests changed with the seasons. Tennis in the summer. Hurling and football swapped places given the demands each weekend. He dabbled in soccer. Above them all was Jordan.
“He was always the main man. He was the kind of player I always admired. He was so relaxed-looking and calm, yet he performed to his peak every time he went out. That’s the kind of person you’d like to be, getting yourself up to that kind of level.
“Keith Wood. Coming towards the latter end of his career you might say a fella would be getting sick of it, being at the top level for so long. But he was even tougher than he was at the start. Roy Keane. You’d have to admire their drive and their ambition to win. They’d do anything to win.”
It’s struck him before. The parallels. The same dreams. The same demands of himself. “It’s their ability to pull out the big performances when required.
“It’s testament to any player when you come against the better teams and perform at the top of your game. Even when it comes down to finals they’ve always produced it. That’s something I’d like to think I could do. Coming to a semi- final and continuing to produce at the best level you can.”
And in the quiet times, he can remember Cahalane on the hill of Macroom and Tompkins driving them up the dunes in Inchydoney by sheer force of will. Now, the players look to Murphy for quiet guidance. Their light. Their hope.