Michael Murphy on Tyrone rivalry and their All-Ireland success

"You do take a glimmer to know that it is possible that a team outside of Dublin can win it."

Michael Murphy, by his own admission, didn't have his best season in a Donegal jersey. A hamstring injury in particular was interrupting his game time, having to be subbed off, subbed on, and constantly a thought in the back of his mind. However, despite watching their fierce rivals Tyrone go on to lift the Sam Maguire trophy, the fact that his Donegal side have had the better of them in recent years, proves that they aren't that far away.

"There's a small glimmer of that, we're fairly fairly close up here in terms of knowing each other, and competing in tit for tat over the last number of years. "But you know, what they went on to do thereafter, you know, to navigate, in terms of Monaghan, Mayo and Kerry -  credit where credit is due, fair play to them and how they've done that.

"As I say there's absolutely no guarantee if we had to get over that game that day in Enniskillen that we would have navigated through with the same style and finesse that they did. "You do take a glimmer to know that it is possible that a team outside of Dublin can win it." [caption id="attachment_239390" align="alignnone" width="1200"] GAA Icon and Donegal Captain, Michael Murphy has partnered with Gallaghers Bakehouse to celebrate the nationwide launch of their new range of uniquely handcrafted sourdough breads and introduce their new campaign, Bread Made Better, The Secret is Out. Gallaghers Bakehouse has been baking delicious fresh bread since 1968 in the picturesque village of Ardara, Co Donegal but this exciting new range boasts all the benefits of sourdough goodness, fermented for a light texture and flavoursome taste whilst full of fibre, offering a bread that is not just tastier but also healthier too. The new range is available in select Tesco, Dunnes Stores, Supervalu, Spar, Centra stores nationwide.[/caption]

Murphy on his performance against Tyrone.

Donegal were of course knocked out by Tyrone in the Ulster championship, a game that saw Murphy miss a penalty and get sent off.

"It definitely wasn't one of my happier times, one of the happier summers. It's life, I didn't go out to do that. "I went out to perform as best I could. Between the penalty and the red card, I should be experienced enough to know that when you're on a yellow you have to really walk a thin line.

"So I can have no qualms or complains over it. Just letting the team down, letting the county down, is the biggest disappointment. "That's one that I just have to live with because the group went on to perform really well throughout the rest of that game. They brought them back to all-square at the start of the second-half. "They were performing really, really well but as the game ebbed on it was fairly prevalent that the man less was affecting us and it was really giving an advantage to Tyrone. "Listen, credit where credit is due, they did what they had to do. On the day we made more mistakes than they did, myself probably culpable of many of the mistakes but you put yourself out there to try and influence in some way or other. "Unfortunately my influences were more probably negative than they were positive and it didn't help our team on the day to try and win the game for Donegal." You can learn more about the Bread Made Better, The Secret is Out campaign and check out their delicious product range here.