Michael Murphy set to make Donegal comeback

Murphy, now 35, watched on last season as Jim McGuinness’s side won Division 2 of the Allianz Football League, the Ulster SFC and reached the All-Ireland semi-final, before losing to Galway.

McGuinness, who guided Donegal to three Ulster crowns and the 2012 All-Ireland SFC in his first tenure in charge, admitted following his reappointment that he had pestered his former captain to return to the set-up.

"We spoke surely to God,” McGuinness said last December. “I do speak to him all of the time and had him half-tortured there for a while."

Murphy, who is Head of Sport at ATU Donegal, spent the last two years playing club football with Glenswilly, where he also managed and coached at underage, as well as being a GAA pundit for BBC Northern Ireland, GAAGO and The Irish Times.

Murphy made his championship debut for Donegal against Leitrim in the 2007 All-Ireland qualifiers and his last appearance was against Armagh in 2022. He made 177 appearances for Donegal at senior level, having also won Ulster crowns at U-21 and minor grade.

In the Donegal Democrat two weeks ago, former Donegal manager Brian McEniff said in his Mac's View column: "The rumour mill here in Donegal over the last week or so is in overdrive with the word that Michael Murphy might have had a change of heart on his intercounty retirement. The greatest footballer Donegal has ever produced could once again be back in the green and gold for 2025.

"It is only a rumour at the minute and it would be wrong, disrespectful even, to get carried away. But what I would unequivocally say is that I still feel Michael has more to give. When he stepped away in 2022, like the rest of the county, I respected his decision because he’d given so much already to Donegal.

"But he was still a relatively young man at 33 then and two years on from that original retirement call, I still believe he has an awful lot to give at that level. And if our prayers were answered there is no doubt managers and full-back lines up and down the country would be quaking in their boots at the thought of facing a Murphy. Even more so, under the new rules, stationed on the edge of the opposition square."

Murphy has been part of the Jim Gavin-led Football Review Committee which was tasked with revitalising the game. A series of new rules drawn up by the committee, which will be voted on at a Special Congress on November 30th, will be enacted for the 2025 season.