Murphy praises Wicklow work-rate
Wicklow manager Harry Murphy praised his side's work-rate after the Garden County claimed Allianz League Division 4 honours thanks to a 2-16 to 1-11 victory over Fermanagh on Saturday.
Only in his first season in charge of Wicklow, Murphy felt that their strong performance in the middle third helped them greatly as they captured a first national title since 2007.
The midfield duo of James Stafford and Rory Finn scored five points between them - all from play.
"We brought Peadar (Burke) in and moved Rory (Finn) to centre forward and it gave us a diamond of three big men," explained Murphy.
"We started winning around those areas and we were very happy with the second half performance.
"We went asleep for the second 15 minutes of the first half and Fermanagh really put it up to us, but in fairness to the lads they dug deep."
Wicklow held Fermanagh to just two second half points, as the Garden County ran rampant.
"They came out in the second half and put in probably our best performance of the year," he added.
Fermanagh manager Peter Canavan lamented the fact that his charges did not perform for the full 70 minutes.
"It was a good performance in spells, but in other spells we gave them too much space," he said.
"We knew before we came down here today that this was a very good Wicklow team.
"They have won big games here at Croke Park before and they have some excellent footballers.
"Harry Murphy is gelling them into a very effective team, so we can have no complaints that the better team won on the day."
Fermanagh conceded two goals in a six-minute spell, and Canavan conceded that they came back to haunt his team.
"Obviously they were kicking a lot of high ball in and feeding off the break," admitted the former Tyrone star.
"We were on the back-foot right from the off. I thought our boys showed great heart and spirit to come back from nine points down to get it to a point at one stage.
"That was a great turnaround, going in at half-time just two points down we were in a good position. But we just didn't get our noses in front - we needed to get a good start to the second half and put them on the back-foot, but that never happened."
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