Galway SFC Final: Keith Duggantalks to radio sports presenter and Milltown player Ciarán Murphy

Whether Milltown win or lose the Galway senior football final tomorrow, their big full forward Ciarán Murphy hopes that, for a few minutes, the team takes the opportunity to close the dressingroom door and reflect on the season past.

Like most of the squad, Murphy was not born when Milltown last won a Galway championship, in the summer of 1981, spurred on by the jazzy forward play of the renowned Gay McManus.

This year, they have been the club that defied the odds and not-so-great expectations to qualify for tomorrow's showpiece. And as someone whose working life him involves an immersion in sport, Murphy is intent that they should take a few private moments to enjoy the experience.

"So no microphones," laughs the man who has built up a notable fan base in radio land as part of the nightly sports show crew who produce Off the Ball, which has become the jewel in the crown of the Newstalk radio station.

Murphy is the acknowledged GAA aficionado on the dedicated sports show, which airs for three hours a night, Monday to Friday, all year around. It is, on the face of it, a daunting chunk of airtime to fill.

Murphy joined the station on a college work placement and was offered a position shortly afterwards and, before he knew it, he was at the office Christmas party watching, in stunned silence, as Eamon Dunphy gave a memorable rendition of the Sinatra classic When I Was Seventeen. He has scarcely paused since and talks brightly and enthusiastically about the daily beat of the show.

"I ended up producing a bit of the show last night, but that was because one of the lads wanted to head off to see a concert, which isn't something we get a chance to do very often. We work hard at it without taking it too seriously. Because it is sport we are dealing with after all. We don't ask people to phone in because, apart from anything else, we think it is incredibly lazy.

"Ideally, we try not to shoehorn too much into any one show. We try our best to develop a rapport with people who send in texts to the show. And after that, we do our best to get interesting guests to come on the show. Our attitude is that you are only four phone calls away from anyone."

In many respects, Off the Ball is a throwback to the halcyon era of talk radio, when broadcasters had the freedom to address their audience without the constraints of a marketing policy based on the presumption that the average attention span lasts for three minutes.

Some Off the Ball interviews can last for half an hour or longer, depending on the quality of the guest. The most celebrated conversation of recent times took place between anchor Eoin McDevitt and the supreme middleweight boxer Bernard Hopkins, who stepped out of a Manhattan restaurant to take their call.

"It was pre-recorded and he was on this street and people were coming up to him yapping. He had been in jail and he was saying: 'Cops are coming up to me now, man.'

"He was hilarious. We have had George Foreman and Ed Moses, guests like that. But I suppose getting Dr John Carlos (the American sprinter who, along with Tommie Smith, raised a black-gloved fist on the medal podium at the 1968 Olympics in solidarity with the African-American poverty movement) to come on the show was probably the most fulfilling thing we did because he spoke so honestly about what happened him since that time. He was practically run out of the country at one stage."

The hectic nature of the show meant Murphy was forced to sideline his Gaelic football career. He is self-effacing about his football ability - "At St Jarlath's, my football went great in first year. By Leaving Cert, I was number 31 and Nickey Joyce was number 26."

But he did play minor with the county and under-21 with John O'Mahony in 2003, an experience that gave him the confidence to successfully audition for a place on Mickey Whelan's UCD Sigerson team a year later. A chance meeting with Whelan at a press conference shortly after Murphy had started with Off the Ball resurrected his football career.

Whelan asked the younger man where he was kicking ball these days and when Murphy grinned and said he wasn't, Whelan replied: "That is not really good enough."

Whelan was coaching St Vincent's at the time and more or less instructed the radio man to show up for training. He started two championship matches for the famed Dublin club last summer, but because the radio show constantly clashed with training, he had to walk away in July.

"After I left, Vincent's went on this great run and got to a county final. I don't think those two facts are unrelated. But Vincent's was just brilliant and I really hope they do it in the Dublin final on Monday evening. It is just such a huge club.

"I remember talking to one guy and he was telling me, 'okay, at under-14 we had Tony Hanahoe training us. Under-16 was Bobby Doyle and Jimmy Keaveney. We had Brian Mullins at minor level. I said: 'Yeah, well, at under-14, I had my dad. At under-16, I had my dad. At minor, eh, I had my dad. The first game we played was out in Malahide.

"It was some tournament or other. There were three Vincent's people at that game. They were: Mickey Whelan, manager; Brian Mullins, selector; and then there was an unknown gentleman in a grey parka that I didn't realise until afterwards was Kevin Heffernan.

"And I remember thinking: 'Jesus, this is different'. But St Vincent's gave me my enthusiasm back. And in the championship games, I really felt I let Mickey Whelan down because he showed a lot of faith in me."

This year, Murphy managed to balance the radio show with playing for his home club of Milltown. Under the tutorship of former Galway goalkeeper Mike McNamara, they have already enjoyed a brilliant championship.

Murphy's family are strong GAA people. He is also a nephew of the Tuam newspaperman Jim Kearney - which means in actual fact, the Off the Ball show team are merely one phone call away from anyone in the world. At 6ft 4ins, Murphy has been a notable target man for the north Galway club and has enjoyed the championship for what it has been - a valuable experience for the club and the town.

Galway centre back Diarmuid Blake and midfielder John Devane are probably the best-known players on the team, but Murphy is ambitious for the intercounty prospects of some of the younger members as well.

Milltown have beaten Corofin and Caltra in their four championship games, clubs that won All-Ireland titles within the last decade. They were outsiders in each game and enter tomorrow's game, against Killererin of Joyce fame, playing the same role.

"They would be like ourselves, a small, rural club that learned how to get the best out of themselves. The effort that goes into running a serious club team now is frightening. And it does have a great effect on the town when you win a few games. We have found a different way to win every match.

"Against Caltra, we were hit for two goals by Micheál Meehan and still came back to score 1-8 by half-time.

"Caltra are a good team. They know what they are about. Brian Kilroy was marking me - a man who has marked me about 1,700 times, starting at under-12. And that is the brilliant thing about club - there are certain characters you just meet year in year out. You see each other and you both throw your eyes to heaven. You again!

"But we ground that win out. And in terms of the final, people say you have to lose one to win one. But we are approaching it as though this is the last game of football we are ever going to play."

Murphy kicked the point that put Milltown ahead in the injury-time period of that match, a feat which resulted in merciless on-air teasing from his colleagues. He is not sure whether the players he has marked through Milltown's adventure are listeners. "I have never been sledged. I don't know. I think a couple of lads might have been. I reckon I can spot an Off the Ball listener from a mile off. But ratings have plummeted down Killererin side anyway."