EOIN’S STILL MURCH THE SAME Stats what we needed to all hear
Dublin hero insists final goal has not changed him in any way
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SCORING the winning goal in a fivein-a-row final can have all kinds of offshoots, though not for Eoin Murchan it seems. Seamus Darby insists that his strike that downed Kerry in 1982 (right) didn’t change him as a person, but he couldn’t reasonably claim that it didn’t have a significant impact on his life thereafter.
Rightly or wrongly, Darby is remembered for that goal above all else though Murchan doesn’t wish to be pigeon-holed for his lungbursting solo run away from David Moran and cool finish past Shane Ryan straight after half-time to t urn last year’s All-ireland final replay decisively in Dublin’s favour.
“I wouldn’t be allowed at the moment, both by my family and teammates,” he insists. “They wouldn’t allow that to be the case.
“Like, I’m still quite young. This will be my fourth Championship and I would hope I have a lot more ahead of me and would be able to impact in more ways than one singular incident. So I haven’t really thought about it in that respect, I’m more focused on trying to improve myself and contribute something to the team so the team can do something.
“Maybe in the future that’s something I’ll look back on, but for now I’m more focused on trying to go out and enjoy my football, enjoy playing with my friends because that’s what I like to do and that’s what we do.”
He adds: “Obviously the goal is a goal and it makes a bit of a difference, but I find it strange that the goal gets so much focus because there was so much else that happened and so much else that was as important that happened in the game.”
Murchan doesn’t dismiss the notion that the move for the goal was rehearsed beforehand, but he says that any dry run in advance didn’t involve him.
“We do have moves for a lot of different scenarios in games. I was aware of one, but I’m not sure whether that was it or whether it was a part of it. I certainly wasn’t supposed to be a part of it.
“But I suppose guys have an understanding from when someone does get the ball as to where they should go or shouldn’t go and they were able to execute that. There was a move but it definitely didn’t involve me.
“I had noticed in the first half that I’d found myself in a lot of space, consistently in acres and acres of space.
“As we were coming out of the tunnel I had a word with Jonny (Cooper) and just said, ‘Look, at some point I’m going to have a go’.
“To be honest I wasn’t expecting it to happen. I kind of got dragged in towards the centre and was just lucky enough that so many things went right and so many went wrong in terms of both our midfielders ran into each other essentially which caused the ball to be knocked down in front of me.”
Murchan’s strike differs mostly from Darby’s in that it came at the opposite end of the second half and there was still plenty of time for Kerry to retrieve the game. But it was still more than enough to elevate his profile considerably.
“Has it changed me? No, to be honest. It was one moment. No, that was one moment among a collection of moments.
“It was fortunate that it was a goal but it alone wouldn’t have won a game. It’s a new team, new management, new players even this year so we started from scratch and a complete clean slate.” where the average incursion lasts for just 1.6 seconds, with the majority less than one second.
The results are likely to allay player concerns about resuming play as hopes for a return to action at club level at least increase after the containment of COVID-19 since strict measures were introduced in March, with the Government set to move to Phase 2 of its roadmap next week.
Newry-based Statsports has a number of leading English soccer clubs on its books and last month carried out a similar study on the Premier League when it reported that incursions within the two-metre zone lasted 3.3 seconds in training sessions – more than twice that of Gaelic games.
In that context, the results may come as a surprise though gaelic games are played on a far larger playing surface.
The data, according to a