At times though as he speaks in his open, engaging way, soccer can't help but protrude. Its language is part of his;

he mentions his habit of constantly talking to his "defenders" and his "back four" to help keep him and them focused".

And it's a constant point of reference.

Take his impression of Sean Boylan.

Murphy's first two years back coincided with Boylan's last two in charge, and though Murphy rode the bench both seasons, he'll say Boylan was the best manager he ever worked under.

Coming from someone who was a fixture at Wimbledon when Joe Kinnear was at the height of his miraculous powers, it's some statement, but the difference was Kinnear was of his time;

Boylan was ahead of his.

"Sean would never openly criticise a player who wasn't playing well; he was more into getting your head right and relaxed. In soccer it was very confrontational. I've seen fights at halftime; pure bedlam. A Premiership dressing room was a very heated place to be. There was a lot more fear of management back then because the money wasn't great and you were playing for a win bonus that could pay your mortgage. The guys they're managing now, they're all millionaires. They're not going to take that from anyone."

Even Fergie, he's noticed, knows now the hairdryer approach isn't the most effective. The genius of Boylan was that he appreciated that when Fergie was still in Aberdeen.

Colm Coyle's approach has also impressed. He can be straight but he's always fair. During the team's pre-championship camp in Portugal last month the side had regular meetings with every player encouraged to speak up. "In soccer, " says Murphy, "we wouldn't have had that. You're paid to do your job, so just do it and shut up.

If you don't, you're gone."

By 2003 Murphy was gone. It wasn't that it just ended one day; it just petered out. After his contract with Wimbledon expired, there were stints with Dundalk and Kidderminster that were hampered by injury. When he returned home for good, playing some inter-county football, something he hadn't done since winning an All Ireland minor title in '92, appealed a lot more than another spell in the Eircom league.

If he had his time cross-channel again, of course he'd do things differently. Gone on loan or dropped a division or two instead of staying in the comfort zone that was the Wimbledon reserves. But as he admits in his likeable, honest manner, "I probably didn't look after myself as good as I should have.

"We worked hard in training alright and looked after ourselves before matches but there was a big social side to football back then and I enjoyed myself. I probably put more into my game now than I did back then, like visualising game-situations before they arise. I was a young man and looking back, didn't appreciate the opportunity I had."

At times he uses the phrase "it didn't work out" in England, but he couldn't call it a failure either. For eight years he made a living from the game.

He played under-21 for his country and, for a friendly, shared a dressing room with Keane, Staunton and McGrath for the national side. What kid from Trim would miss out on that?

"You hear of a lot of lads with their tail between their legs who don't want to come back because they're so ashamed and let's face it, it's in the nature of a lot of other people who kind of like not seeing you do that well."

Murphy just did what goalkeepers do any time they're beaten. He picked himself up, "stuck my chest out, kept my head up high" and kicked the ball out again.

That meant, at 28, looking for the "first proper job" of his life. He soon found it, as a sales assistant for McGurk's golf superstore in Blanchardstown. He's still with them but he also does some work in a sports therapy clinic in Kells having completed a fulltime course in the discipline. Any night he's not training with Meath, he's out doing some work with some team. It's hectic, especially for a married man, but biology was always an interest of his, and Gaelic football a passion.

That passion has been tested. "There were times in that second year with Sean that I looked around and it was all young lads on the bench, so I was thinking to myself, 'What am I doing? At my age there's no logic in this.' David Gallagher was in goals, playing well, so when Sean finished up I unofficially retired myself."

When Eamonn Barry finally got his chance to manage the county team though, he phoned Murphy to say he'd get his chance too, and when Murphy mulled the offer over with his wife Sharon, they decided he'd be long enough retired. As divisive a figure as Barry was in his brief tenure, Murphy will be eternally grateful to him for that phone call and promise. For the last two years, with Gallagher plagued with injury, Murphy has established himself as Meath's number one.

At the start of last year alright his kickouts were suspect enough but he's worked hard on them and at claiming the high ball. Darren Fay is another reason why he looks even more assured this year. It's funny. The pair have been friends and clubmates since they were kids. When Murphy was in England, he came home to see his neighbour win All Irelands. Just last year, they played for Trim Celtic in the local soccer league, with Murphy in goal and Fay, typically, at centre half, where, says Murphy, "his touch was rusty but his reading of the game was first class". Yet for so long, it seemed as if they'd never get to play championship for Meath together. Murphy's first year back in goal and Fay retired. Now Fay's back. And the thing is, you can tell he's been away.

"I've definitely seen a change in Darren. He's a little more laid back. He seems to be really set on enjoying his football. He's always looking for the ball, always going hard for the ball, always the first man at training. Every session he plays like a match."

It would be both simplistic and wrong to say that ethic instantly rubbed off on everyone this season. Three weeks before Meath won the Division Two title, they were in disarray.

"The work rate just wasn't there, " says Murphy. "Not just [in the sevenpoint defeat] against Wexford but in a lot of our league games before it too. It was only after Wexford we realised the effort it takes to win an inter-county game. We weren't playing as a team either. You had a new manager and some experienced players on the bench so fellas were looking over their shoulder, trying to do the spectacular and that individualism was killing us. We all held our hands up and to be fair to everyone, we really worked hard in training the next night and turned it around."

For all the advances Meath have made in the last month, today they face the kind of test Division Two semifinals or finals, or even Kildare, can never present. Last week Coyle told his players only an All Ireland final was bigger than a championship game against Dublin and Murphy had to agree. He's waited half a lifetime for today. The only time he ever played championship against the Dubs before was when he was 15, in '91, in Parnell Park, with the minors. Three years later in the lead up to the senior Leinster final, he was sounded out whether he'd come home and fill the vacancy left after the demotion of Donal Smyth, but Murphy had just joined Wimbledon and couldn't take the risk.

Now all these years on from Michael McQuillan's infamous mistake that day, the Hill and its darlings will be breathing down on him.

"You know, " Roy Hobbs is told in The Natural, "I believe we have two lives.

The life we learn with and the life we live with after that."

In the Premiership Brendan Murphy learned. His second coming is here.

LACK OF FIREPOWER LIKELY TO DENT MEATH'S AMBITIONS LEINSTER SFC QUARTER-FINAL DUBLIN v MEATH Croke Park, 4.00 Referee J McKee (Armagh)

Year Three of the Pillar revolution and nobody's pretending anything less than a bumptious blue Hill on the third Sunday in September will guarantee a Year Four. Since the bewildering defeat to Mayo last August the Dubs have become the team you just can't trust when the squeeze comes, even passing out perennial deflators Donegal along the way. For that reason, they could really do with Meath turning up dressed for work today and for the game to be anyone's with 10 minutes to go. Gut-check time came too late for them last year to know what to do with it.

Few sides had as bothersome a league. Not making the play-offs was small beer in the great scheme of things, but the manner of defeat against Tyrone and Mayo was galling, especially in light of the final 20 minutes of the All Ireland semi-final. A dose of the yips when in possession of a decent lead is among the very last habits a team with such lordly pretensions as Dublin's can afford to be burdened with. If closing out a two-bit league game in Castlebar is beyond their ken, it's going to take some pretty big talking to shoo away the doubts come a close one in July and August.

Paul Caffrey is having a bit of a punt with his two debutants today but since he has a fair idea of the Meath hand, it's a legitimate one to take. Young though Ross McConnell (left) might be, there's something preternaturally calming about the way he carries himself. Even at this early stage, he has an authority about him that says he could still be wearing the Dublin number three jersey when (or if) Graham Geraghty is having his third run at getting into the Dail. A day of rough and tumble with an old dog like Geraghty and he'll wake up tomorrow aware of a few new tricks.

As for Diarmuid Connolly, the fact that he has Mossy Quinn, Conal Keaney and Alan Brogan to feed inside him as well as Shane Ryan, Ciaran Whelan and Darren Magee to win ball in his proximity should bless him with as close to an armchair ride as is possible in the circumstances. And as the league game against Tyrone back in February showed, he is unlikely to be cowed by the crowd or the crescendo.

Meath will tip away but without the suspended Brian Farrell, it's tough to see where the 1-14 or so they're going to need will come from. Geraghty and Joe Sheridan will strap the free-taking satchel to their shoulders but neither has shown himself to be wholly reliable in that department before. Cornerforward Stephen Bray has begun to make a nice little name for himself in Croke Park these past few weeks and might be worth a small interest for first goalscorer and there's no denying that in Darren Fay, Anthony Moyles, Nigel Crawford and Mark Ward, Meath have a backbone that will take the Pepsi challenge with anyone.

So they have enough about them to give Dublin plenty of it. But equally, Dublin should have enough to keep them at arm's length.

Verdict Dublin by two DUBLIN S Cluxton; D Henry, R McConnell, P Grif"n; P Casey, B Cullen, B Cahill; C Whelan, D Magee; C Moran, S Ryan, D Connolly; A Brogan, C Keaney, T Quinn MEATH B Murphy; E Harrington, D Fay, N McKeigue; S Kenny, A Moyles, C King; N Crawford, M Ward; P Curran, K Reilly, P Byrne; S Bray, G Geraghty, J Sheridan