Declan Bonner lauds ‘sharp’ Michael Murphy as comeback falls just short

Not for the first time, Michael Murphy’s importance to Donegal was evidenced by his second-half appearance in Saturday night’s Dr McKenna Cup final.

Murphy was introduced at half-time with Donegal 1-7 to 0-4 in arrears and Monaghan pulling away.

While Monaghan stretched the lead out to nine, Murphy led a spirited charged and his six points almost pulled off a comeback that seemed impossible as much as improbable.

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Donegal landed nine of the last ten points and were pipped 1-11 to 0-13.

“Michael looked sharp when he went in there,” Declan Bonner, the Donegal manager, said.

“He had a real calming influence and he has real leadership qualities that is difficult to get. He has been around so long and he is a real leader. The lads picked up on that in the second half. We got more energy.

“The key for me was getting our hand on ball and once we did that we were always going to be a threat. We created a couple of opportunities that we didn’t take but, all in all, it was a satisfactory campaign.”

Dessie Ward’s goal in the fourth minute kept Monaghan in command until Donegal really started to make inroads.

Murphy was, as generally tends to be the case, to the fore with his six points. After an injury-hit campaign last year, Donegal will hope the captain can have an uninterrupted campaign in 2022.

Even when the game was creeping every further away from his men, Bonner insists that he retained a belief that they could reel in the Farney.

He said: “We felt that we could get hand on ball and we made a couple of changes at half-time to get energy in. We felt that we would still be there or thereabouts.

“It turned out that way, but we didn’t get off to a good start in the second half. From there on, we really went at it.

“The lads were excellent in the last 30 minutes. All we wanted was a bit of control and once we got that, we really started to ask questions.”

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Bonner pointed to what he felt was a double-bounce by David Garland and felt that Caolan McGonagle was unlucky not to be given a mark late in the game with referee Padraig Hughes deeming the pass to have been delivered from the wrong side of the ’45’s chalk.

“Some days the decisions go for you and tonight they didn’t,” Bonner sighed.

“It was a final that we wanted to win. Monaghan came the more aggressive early on. When we started to tag on scores, we were probably unfortunate that we didn’t get a draw out of it in the end up.”