‘There’s a big mindset change, I’m mad to go and can’t wait for it’ – Sligo’s Murphy
Yeats County man embarked on travels before first lockdown and is now revitalised for new season
IT’S hard not to be envious when Niall Murphy starts describing the world tour which he embarked upon alongside his girlfriend Clare while the rest of Ireland was facing the isolation of a barrage of lockdowns. Having opted out of the Sligo football fold for 2020 to re-energise and see what the world had to offer, the former Yeats County captain made it out just in the nick of time and he arrived in Bali as most of the Irish were packing up and heading for home.
The pair considered doing likewise amid the early stages of Covid-19, but they decided “to stick it out” and it wouldn’t be a decision that they regretted as they soaked up the sun and sand for a few months before heading for the US.
Murphy subsequently became one of the only overseas players to receive a GAA sanction as he plied his trade with the Sligo footballers in the Big Apple – where they were defeated in the New York SFC final by a St Barnabas side made up entirely of homegrown players – before heading south to Mexico.
Acquainted
While those back home were getting acquainted with everything and anything within 2km of their base, Murphy was living an alien life as a journey like no other concluded back where they started in Indonesia, before returning to the west of Ireland in February.
Of all the times to go travelling and take a break from the rigours of the inter-county game, he could hardly have picked a better one as a Covid outbreak meant Sligo played no part in last year’s winter championship and it was only when Coolera/ Strandhill were beaten in the county semi-final that he longed for home.
“When the club were going well, that was probably the only time when I thought ‘F***, I’d love to get home’. The lads got to the county senior semi-final and lost by a point so that was probably difficult watching,” Murphy says of his sojourn.
“But, look you’re away, you’re living by the sea, the sun was there so I had it a lot easier and I’d no complaints about the year. We’d a great time, and considering everything that was going on in the world we were quite happy, selfishly.”
Football was the last thing on his mind when he departed for brighter pastures as the inter-county treadmill had curbed his enthusiasm after being on board since he was 18, but a season out of the fray has left him full of verve.
That’s not something the 27-year-old could have said this time last year, though, and getting out of the inter-county bubble has allowed him to fall in love with the Gaelic games all over again and realise why he signed up for county duty in the first place.
“There’s a big mindset change, I’m mad to go and can’t wait for it. Maybe it’s just the lockdown as well, that you’re sitting at home all the time and you can’t get out that you’re even extra motivated to go, but you re-evaluate things when you’re away for a year,” he says. “You get to think about things when you’re outside the bubble and you definitely miss it. I definitely missed it and it was always my plan to come back this year, take a few months out and then go back at it, so I can’t wait to get going again. “When you’re in the bubble you probably don’t realise what’s going on with all the training. But when you step outside it, or you’re in your off-season for the couple of weeks, you realise then that ‘Jesus, I’m after putting down nine months there for nine games’. “We used to go nine or 10 weeks between league and championship for a game, things like that are madness so it’s good that the GAA are finally looking into it and hopefully next year that will be sorted.
Shortened
“A shortened season with extra games is what players want, not to be training the whole time.”
Having been granted a career break by his employer – Cora Systems in Carrick-on-Shannon – to roam the world, Murphy is back in the thick of things with the software company while he is ‘mad for road’ with Sligo for the truncated season ahead. His meetings with new boss Tony McEntee, as well as the exciting backroom appointments of former Donegal star Paul Durcan and Sligo legend Mark Breheny, have been confined to Zoom as they ready themselves remotely for a big push when training officially resumes on April 19.
It’s hard to get away from the fact that Sligo have disappeared off the football radar in recent seasons and Murphy has little interest in the remainder of his county career being completed in the shadows of Division 4 with league promotion a chief priority.
“It’s not something we’ve spoken about yet but we have to be looking to get out of Division 4.
“The lads last year didn’t get out, they were close, maybe one game away and they threw away a game or two but we’re hoping that the league will go ahead this year,” Murphy says.
“For Division 3 and 4 teams, it’s very important that those leagues go ahead and you want to be playing at a higher level so we’ll be looking to bounce straight back up this year and give the Connacht championship a rattle as well.
“We’ve had a poor couple of years and I’m moving on as well so I’d like to finish my career up somewhere closer to the top, for sure,” stresses Murphy.
His surroundings will be a little less glamorous than Bali, New York and Mexico, but there’s no place Murphy would rather be than driving Sligo forward.
“When I was leaving I had no interest in playing football at all and it took me weeks to make the decision to take the year out and I didn’t really miss it.
“But this year I’m just mad to get back. I’d probably put it down to being away from it and missing it so I’m mad to get going again,” he concludes.
‘We’ve had a poor couple of years and I’m moving on so I’d like to finish up somewhere closer to the top, for sure’