“We are very lucky with the facilities we have in Glenmore. We have an indoor arena so even when the weather is bad we’d be down there playing a couple of games and things like that, there’s a few markings on the wall to keep your touch.”

Murphy showed his class again recently with a superb stop from Cork’s Patrick Horgan, or did it hit the bar?

“I saved it — don’t take that one away from me! If they are like that you might have to take a chance on maybe taking half a step out to try and block a player, like Nickie Quaid last year (against Cork).”

No wonder Murphy picked up an All-Star last year, which he describes as a “massive personal honour”, but he’s already enjoying this season: “I don’t think we were too far off it last year. We probably had two bad games where we felt we didn’t do ourselves any sort of justice.

"It’s all about finding that consistency where we are putting ourselves in a position where we are not chasing the game. In the Limerick game in the first half, we went maybe 0-5 to 0-1 up after about 10 or 12 minutes.

"Even for the period of 10 minutes after that, I think we drove six or seven uncharacteristic wides: 99 times out of 100 those players would be confident of scoring, so that could have pushed us on there.

“If a team works harder; like last year Limerick worked harder than any team. Even ourselves, if you look at the stats they were probably hooking and blocking more in the game they played against us.

If you can have that in a team from 1 to 15, and the five players coming on, if they can keep the work rate level to a really high standard, you are going to be hard to beat.

Murphy has new faces in the defence, Huw Lawlor and Tommy Walsh, and he speaks highly of them. “The two of them are flying it, even in training. They would have played a few Fitzgibbon games too so that’s a massive help at this time of year.”

They all have to work to combat opponents creating room in front of goal.

“There’s so much space out in front of you that you’re sort of playing as a bit of a sweeper, if you want to call it,” says Murphy.

“A lot of the time you could be easily coming 20 or 30 yards off the goal line, not straight out onto the 21 but you could be running that 30 yards out to the corner to get the ball. Ten years ago that would have been unheard of.

"Last year when we played Limerick, it might just have been because of the scenario of the game but I think I ended up on the ‘45 with nearly the last puck of the game, catching a ball that was just loose.

“Generally teams are trying to create space in around the full-forward line, I’d nearly play between the 14 and the 20 anyway, being that couple of yards off the line so you’re expecting the ball and you’re not getting caught flat-footed.

"That’s just the way teams set up and we’re no different, we try to create our own space as well, everybody has their own game-plan.”

Restarts are another area where the game has changed.

“Definitely. If teams are playing with a spare man they try to go with the short puckouts because possession is so vital and with strength and conditioning and stuff, if you can win primary possession it’s very hard for a player to take it off the opposing team so you can create overlaps.

“That short puckout thing, the older generation find it very hard to buy into because it’s not what they were brought up on but the game has evolved so much. You probably have to set up different game-plans for different teams, but if situations arise during a game, you have to take them.

“You wouldn’t be thinking 10 years ago that you (goalkeepers) would be taking a few frees and popping them over. I take them for the club, it’s something I don’t mind and it was something Brian (Cody) said to me a few years back.

"It probably took me a little while to get into it and it’s probably a lot to do with confidence and how you set up and approach the ball and trust your strike on the ball as well.

"I’m naturally a good striker so it’s just about carrying that through into a free and not concentrating on trying to place it too much because if you do you’re not hitting it as sweet as you’d like to be.”

Keepers like Damien Fitzhenry and Davy Fitzgerald took penalties, of course.

If I’d to come up and was asked to take a penalty if that was the case - or a sideline - I’d be delighted. I’m not too great at sidelines but I’d always throw my hat into that as well. It’s evolving so much and players probably have to take on different roles.

“If you said 10 years ago that a full-back would probably have 30 yards of space in front of him, people would sort of laugh at you but that’s the way it’s gone.

"If you said in the late nineties that Cork were going to come along in 2002-3 and have a handpassing possession game, people probably would have thought you were mad but it’s just been constantly evolving.”

Goalkeepers still have to mind the basics, though. “We would work on our feet and our positional sense in training, myself and (sub keeper) Darren Brennan.

"If you can be set well in goal as a goalkeeper — there are times where you’re going to have to dive for the ball but a lot of the time, one step and a reach of a hurl, you can get to most shots unless they’re exactly top corner.

“James McGarry, for years he probably never had to make an extravagant save. He conceded very few goals as well but would have always have had stops to make, never your flamboyant ones.

"He just had brilliant positional sense and he’d do a lot of work with us. We do a lot of different things as well, your quickness getting off the ground and that would all tie into your reaction times and your strength and conditioning programmes.

"To play hurling your reflexes are naturally sharp anyway. It’s just fine-tuning that a small bit more in the goal.”