Michael Murphy has ruled out the prospect of going for the vacant Donegal manager’s job.
Murphy retired from inter-county football last November and while he has ambitions to move up the coaching ladder, he won’t be jumping in at the deep end at this stage.
He announced his retirement shortly after the appointment of Paddy Carr as manager though Carr resigned amid player unrest in March. His coach, Aidan O’Rourke, stepped up as interim manager and steadied the ship though he made it clear following the recent Championship exit at the hands of Tyrone that he was not interested in taking on the job going forward.
And neither is Murphy.
“Not yet, not yet,” he said. “Listen, timing, I suppose last year the reason I moved away from playing was because of the whole energy thing of what’s required on an everyday basis, that’s the whole thing I would have struggled to give.
“I knew myself it was something I would struggle to give, and moving into management, listen, it’s a big thing. Moving into senior inter-county management and seeing the way recent managers that I’ve had took on the role; playing you probably get an opportunity to rest for a few hours of the day in order to try and perform at your best.
“But management now, for what I see in order to do it right and the way it needs to be done, it’s massive hours within every single day. Plus added into the fact I need to go and learn the trade, I need to go and learn about it and maybe go and figure out caching and figure out management.
“I’ve been taking the local minors for the last couple of years and at that level I give it my all for a couple of days a week, but that’s what it is - a couple of days of the week.
“So I’m not foolish enough to kind of know that I could throw myself into something, but listen, as I said if you had asked the question five or six years ago I’d say inter-county management, I’d love to give it a crack and give it a go but the more I see of what’s involved in it in recent years the more it wouldn’t be a concrete ‘yes, give it a go’ answer.
“But definitely I’ll do everything I can to put myself in a position to see if it’s something I enjoy, I think I would definitely be wanting to do that.”
