He just about managed to line out in the county final against Faythe Harriers, which ended in a draw. He just about managed to line out in the replay, another draw. By the third game, Murphy's body was protesting so much that he could only come on for the last 10 minutes. Although typically he can't resist adding that Rathnure won by two points, it was the end of the line for him as a player.

He raged for a year and a half against the dying of the light. He tried physios, medics, acupuncturists, quacks. No joy. Closure only arrived in 1981 when the club asked him to take the minor and juvenile teams. There was only ever going to be one answer. "Being the fanatic I was, I couldn't kill the bloody time." Suddenly he found he could. Rathnure won both titles; Murphy discovered he had a talent for coaching.

Soon his world widened. Different clubs (Ballymurphy and Naomh Eoin in Carlow, Glenmore in Kilkenny), different counties, different grades, umpteen successes.

The first time he felt he might be destined for greater things was in 1996 on the day he coached Rathnure to win the Wexford senior hurling final.

He waited, he itched through two subsequent Leinster title victories with the county under-21s and the big job came to him at last.

Has it been what he wanted? Everything and more besides. But oh, the workload. Wexford trained yesterday week in Wexford Park at 9am. They played the county under-21s there on bank holiday Monday. On Wednesday night Murphy was in Enniscorthy with the county intermediate team, which he also coaches. On Thursday he was back in Wexford Park with the seniors. The nights he spent at home, he left Rathnure at 5.30am next day to be on site in Dublin for work with Collen Construction at 7.30. Somewhere amid the dawns and departures he succeeded in creating time for a night out with his wife Margaret. Make sure you mention Margaret, he says.

Mother of Francis and Bridget. "The backbone of the household while I've been away for 25 years with GAA."

Behind every great man, etc.

"A bit of silverware on the table, " is Murphy's reply when pressed on his objective . . . his realistic objective . . . as Wexford manager. "On the face of it, anyway. You're not considered to have achieved anything without that." But sometimes cloth has to be cut to measure, and a man who takes the rudder during a transitional period must fix his sights on less high-flown priorities. Drafting new blood, overhauling the squad, attempting to leave behind a cohesive unit that with a couple of additions will, he hopes, "promise Wexford something over the next few years": with or without the bit of silverware, Murphy would be quite happy with a legacy of visible progress.

Because a Wexford manager by and large can't be expected to achieve much more. Because a Wexford manager is required to play a hand dealt to him by others.

Because a Wexford manager is always conscious that he's only papering over the cracks, the latest in a long line of generals whose doom it is to try and fight the long defeat. "Oh, absolutely. And these aren't yesterday's cracks. It's many cracks from years back the road." He knows. He was that boy soldier.

By way of illustration, Murphy tells the story of the Rathnure under-14 team that won the Nicky Rackard League in 1967. The sky could have been their limit. Instead within two years, he and five other members of the side found themselves enrolling with Shelbourne United, the soccer club at the other end of the parish. What else could they do to stay occupied? "I don't believe a young fella of 15 can throw his hurley away in the month of September and not get back to it 'til March."

Such personal experience has informed Murphy's PhD thesis on the crippling effects on Wexford hurling of the consistent lack of competitive games domestically. Bar Rathnure, Cloughbawn, Buffers Alley and Oulart the Ballagh, he points out, there's no hurling-only or almosthurling-only GAA club in the county. "The others are all 50-50 hurling and football.

People say that the standard of club hurling here is terrible, but one of the reasons for that is because the 50-50 clubs find it difficult to support motions for change. You can't expect them to be playing hurling one Sunday and football the next Sunday, Sunday after Sunday. There'd be injuries, suspensions, burn out. We have to have nine or 10 clubs who give hurling priority. You can have all the development squads you like, all the secondary schools you want, but young players won't stick two codes. That's why I'm delighted to see what Dublin are doing, making lads decide at 16 which of the two they'll settle on."

The local big-ball fraternity, he says, got it right. The introduction of the Jim Byrne Cup, an under-17 winter competition, "has brought Wexford football long roads. It's been a great, great help. It's going as strong as ever and it's played to a finish. Whether the final is Christmas Eve, it's played." Compare and contrast with hurling, where a similar competition was conceived a decade or so ago but died shortly after birth.

"The hard work still has to be put it. And that's what happened to us after 1968 [when Wexford did the All Ireland senior and minor double]. I honestly believe people stopped working. They thought, 'We are Wexford, we are going on from here.' If you stop working for a couple of years, the whole thing slips away."

Murphy never has. Ask him to grade his first season in the job out of 10 and he tentatively gives it a six. Wexford played "very well" in a "very good Leinster final" against Kilkenny, a team they were trying to beat for a second year in succession ("never easy"). Disappointed by the defeat, proud of the performance. What befell them next time out in the All Ireland quarter-final has left him still scratching his head.

"Nine times out of 10, we manage a good performance against Kilkenny. Maybe it's because the hurling is open.

Clare were a big strong team.

Their style of play may have had a bearing on the outcome.

We played against the wind, Clare got a bit of a lead, we started going for goals too early in the second half and we lost our shape."

That said, he can't let the interview pass without referring to Wexford's wretched luck with injuries over the past 18 months. What with knocks and strains coming on top of the retirement of Larry Murphy and Colm Kehoe and the departure of Paul Codd, there wasn't a day when they were able to field their best and fittest team.

And if there was, then there wasn't a day when they didn't lose a key player during a game. Adrian Fenlon at halftime in last year's Leinster final. Declan Ruth, their centre-back, 24 minutes into the All Ireland quarter-final. Fullstrength Wexford may or may not win matches. Understrength Wexford categorically do not.

The recent National League might similarly have been kinder to them. A string of fine saves by Clinton Hennessy, the Waterford goalkeeper, condemned them to a two-point defeat in Dungarvan. In Birr they led from pillar to the shadow of the winning post before being caught by Brian Carroll's injury-time point. While the inevitable heavy beating was endured along the way . . . this year's edition an 0-19 to 0-7 shelling from an uncoiling Cork . . . it wouldn't have taken much for Wexford to reach the quarter-final stage. As it was they ended up requiring extra-time to see off Laois in the relegation semi-final at Nowlan Park, where their inability to kill off their opponents in the second half puzzled Murphy as much as it worried him.

Of late, however, things have "begun to come together", he agrees. They beat Waterford well in a challenge match in Thurles the other week before running Galway to a point in Athenry the following Saturday. The uncertainty over Darragh Ryan has ended. Paul Codd has returned to the fold. Being Wexford, they walk on with hope in their hearts. Being Wexford, they know no other way.

Murphy naturally bridles at the notion that his lads and Offaly are bald men fighting over a comb today, squabbling for the right to lose to Kilkenny in the Leinster final.

"Ah, that's a little bit unfair.

Obviously Kilkenny are way more consistent, have a higher profile at underage level, are National League champions. They'll be hot favourites in the Leinster final whoever they play." Losing to Offaly might not, Murphy concedes, be the trumpet that sounds the end of the world for Wexford, in that the rhythm of regular hurling built into a spin in the qualifiers could do them more good than harm.

But he'll only worry about that tomorrow morning if he has to.