McGuinness protects Murphy praising his treatment of younger players

He might have been criticised in many quarters but Jim McGuinness last night hailed Michael Murphy after he played his part in yesterday’s brilliant victory over Kerry at Croke Park.

The Glenties man rightly expected to be questioned about Murphy’s tackle on Kerry’s Dylan Casey which saw him receive a yellow card.

But the Donegal manager had only good things to say about the former Donegal captain, especially when it comes ot helping the younger players in his squad.

“Michael, for us, is a huge player and you’re talking there about young Max [Campbell] who goes in to play at centre half-back, and Michael allows young lads like that to do that,” said McGuinness.

“And gives them the opportunity to be able to relax and talk them through the game so yeah, we’re delighted to have him.

“He’s still a huge player for us, and helps those younger lads coming through massively in training so delighted with that.”

McGuinness said he did not see the incident which could so easily have led to a premature end to Murphy’s game.

He told reporters “I didn’t see anything of it, to be honest with you, but the game is very physical out there.”

Without the likes of Ciaran Thompson, Oisin Gallen and Sean Patton, Donegal still turned on the style to turn the table on last year’s All-Ireland Final result.

And McGuinness was happy with the result and looking forward ot the new championship.

“In terms of the league, it’s been brilliant,” he said.

“We’ve got everything out of it we wanted. We were able to build our own lads from last year, we got a good look at a number of young fellas, and then people that were struggling with injuries, Jason [McGee] in particular, have come back healthy and come through a lot of games.

“That’s what we wanted to achieve out of the league and we definitely got that.

“We’re taking a few days off and we are away at a training camp for a couple of days.

“Once we come back we’ll have a fortnight proper training into the Down game and hopefully we can use that time well. They deserve a bit of a break.

“We replenish the bodies now and go back and start to get to work on the Ulster Championship because that’s the number one for us.

“We have a Down team coming that are very confident at the minute. We know what’s coming so that’s going to be a massive challenge and we have be ready in a month’s time.”

McGuinness protects Murphy praising his treatment of younger players was last modified: March 30th, 2026 by Staff Writer

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