Murphy says they were always playing catch-up

SEAMUS Murphy gave us his thoughts after his team’s defeat to Kildare in the U21B championship, and he started by answering whether he thought his team had left too big a mountain to climb in the second half.

“I suppose we left a little bit too much, especially if we didn’t get a few goals. Now there was a strong enough breeze there in fairness in the first half. We always felt with that stiff breeze in the second half we felt we had a chance and the fact we’re only together a few weeks that every minute we’re playing that we’d improve.

“We said that at half time to believe in ourselves and that we would get better. Fortunately we did but we didn’t get a result out of it.”

Murphy referenced that the team were only together for a few weeks and he would have liked more training sessions together. Murphy and his management team tried to get the training started earlier but with club fixtures in both hurling and football players were unable to commit. However, he wasn’t laying the blame on anybody, knowing that it’s a difficult balancing act for everybody involved.

The decision to put team captain Enda Donohoe back in defence and keep him there for two-thirds of the game was a puzzling one.

Murphy explained the danger posed by the Kildare attack and how Donohoe’s skill on the ball could help the team.

“You have Shane Ryan, Jack Sheridan, James Burke and Barry Cormack, four Christy Ring winners, in the full forward line or around there. You have three forwards who scored in the Christy Ring Cup final, Burke scored nine points, Jack Sheridan scored 2-01 and Ryan scored 1-02. So we had to try and keep as much ball away from that area of the field as possible.

“Enda played as sweeper for us last year and on a day like today with the wind you’ll always find your sweeper playing closer to the full back line because if you play him nearer your centre back the ball will bypass him. Enda has a good delivery on the ball down the field too.”

The conversation finished with Murphy’s thoughts on the year overall, one that may be characterised as unfulfilled. A couple of poor results and injuries didn’t help the cause at all.

“It didn’t compare well to 2017. We reached the Division 2B final and got to the Christy Ring Cup semi-final, now I know we did that this year too. There was a certain confidence that this year we could go on and win the Division 2B and I suppose the first day of disaster struck when he went to Ballycran and lost to Down.

“We were playing catch up from that because if you lose one game in a six team division it’s difficult to come back. Then we lost to Mayo.

“We were unfortunate that a few players were slow to come back from operations the year before and they weren’t in full flight for the league. We got to the Christy Ring Cup and the worst news we could have gotten was that John Henderson was gone for us for the semi-final.”

Murphy referenced that sense of confidence a second time in his comments, suggesting that expectations were set higher that they should.

“I think in general the attitude was a little bit wrong, maybe with everybody. That includes supporters, the county board, ourselves in the management, the players, I think everyone thought we got a great draw in the Christy Ring.

“With some of the weaker counties in Division 2B or the Christy Ring they slide down so easy when it’s going wrong in one season.

“All of a sudden, maybe a new management comes in, and they can pick it up again. Down were far better in the league this year than they were last year, I think we beat them by 10 points.

“I think next year will be a very difficult year. You’ll have Derry, a better team if they had all their Slaughtneil players during the league, Kildare are back down in it. I don’t think anybody will think we’ll win 2B, they’ll be talking about doing all the work to remain a 2B team.

“There are positives too, we saw good players out there today and we’ll be scouting for players in the next few weeks. We said to the players in there after the match that if we see somebody step up we’ll ask them into the panel, if you get the chance to wear the Wicklow jersey it’s a huge honour.”