Kerry wing back Sean Murphy was a near automatic choice on the team of the century. In GAA terms, man could hardly be afforded a greater honour than to be named on the team of the century. A team where immortals such as Danno Keeffe, Enda Colleran, Paddy O'Brien, John Joe Reilly, Mick O'Connell, Jack O'Shea, Sean O'Neill, Sean Purcell, Pat Spillane and Kevin Heffernan rub shoulders, where every position is filled by a giant, a legend of some era or another. Well worth his selection at right half back on this dream team is Kerryman Sean Murphy, who represented both county and province with much gusto in the fifties and sixties. From the moment he was born, chances were that Dr. Sean Murphy was going to make a great footballer. He was born in Camp, ten miles west of Tralee in the Dingle peninsula, an area which, with a population of approximately 200 people, Sean believes has produced more All-Ireland stars per capita than any other part of Ireland - Murphy himself collected five in total and then there was Ken O'Donnell and Charlie Sullivan and Denis O'Shea Sean Murphy's brother Seamus another brother Padraig (Junior All-Ireland) and Tom Murphy (Minor All-Ireland). Throughout his career, Sean Murphy's club was Dingle outfit Castlegregory. The former Kerry great was unfortunate not to win a county Championship medal. "The Dingle club fragmented years ago and is now back to one club again. We would have won county titles were it not for local politics," he reflects. A Dublin Senior League medallist with UCD in 1962. Dr Sean Murphy has an unusual record in Kerry - he won a Junior All-Ireland in 1949, an All-Ireland Minor medal in 1950 and Senior All-Ireland titles in '53,'55 and '59 against Armagh, Dublin and Galway respectively. Even though he was still a Minor up until 1952, Sean Murphy had forced his way into the Kerry side for the National League in 1949! The man from Camp captained the Combined Universities team which beat the Rest of Ireland in 1953 and represented Munster between 1952 and '62, but never won a Railway Cup medal. The undoubted highlight of Murphy's career arrived in 1939 when he collected his third All-Ireland Senior medal -Kerry defeated Galway on a scoreline of 3-7 to 1-4 in a game which has gone down in GAA folklore as "Sean Murphy's final". Disappointments included defeat on All-Ireland final day at the hands of Meath in 1954 and Down in 1960. In 1960 Murphy marked Paddy Doherty and in '54 he was on Meath's Michael Grace ("another great player") Winner of eight Munster Championship medals during his days as an intercounty footballer of great distinction, Dr Sean Murphy believes that success comes and goes in cycles, that the Kingdom could be nearing the beginning of another productive cycle. "The current Kerry team reminds me of when I started on the county team. Kerry had won the All-Ireland in 1946 and went seven years before they won it again. That win in 1953 started the run which went up until 1986. The renaissance in the fifties started with an All-Ireland Minor win in 1950 and that team provided the basis for the side which appeared in Senior finals in 1953, '54, '55, '59 and '60. We've gone eight years without a Senior All-Ireland Minor this year. I'm confident that we may see another renaissance soon. It's history repeating itself," he enthuses. Based in Tralee as a full-time doctor since 1964, Sean Murphy has lost none of his enthusiasm for the national code over the years. That Kerry haven't won an All-Ireland since 1986 annoys him only slightly. As long as somebody is playing attractive football and winning All-Irelands, then the Castlegregory clubman is happy. "I think that as every years passes there's less emphasis on tradition. Counties like Clare, Donegal, Derry, Limerick and Tipperary are beginning to emerge. I'm looking at these teams and it's marvellous to see them coming up. I think that these are very exciting times for football, even for Kerry because there's so much competition now," the former Kingdom great offers. The question which all gaelic football fans would like to hear answered is - how would the great Kerry team of times gone by fare in the modern game? "I believe that the Down, Derry Donegal, Meath and Dublin teams of the past ten years would have given any Kerry team of any era a run for it. I think Kerry would probably have won less All-Irelands if those teams had been around," opines one of the greatest wing backs ever to grace the gaelic football scene. Written by the Hogan Stand Magazine 11 Nov 1994 Tweet

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