Sligo manager Paul Taylor will have to plan without Niall Murphy in 2020 after the Yeats County captain confirmed his decision to “take a break for the season ahead”.

Murphy took over his county’s captaincy 12 months ago and has been a key player for the Yeats men in recent seasons.

This past summer he hit the headlines after scoring a remarkable 15-point tally in a club match for Coolera/Strandhill and had been expected to return to the black and white of the Yeats men as they bid for an immediate return to Division 3 of the National League in the spring.

However, speaking to OceanFM, the 26-year-old confirmed his intentions to take a year out, adding that the Tier 2 championship’s introduction was a factor in his decision to step away. 

“I’ve decided to take a break for the season ahead,” Murphy stated. “It was a very difficult decision and it probably took me a couple of weeks to make it.

“Look, there’s plenty of little reasons but ultimately, I always had it in my head that I wanted to do a bit of travelling for a year. Myself and my girlfriend decided that this was going to be the year that we’d take a few months away and do a bit of travelling around the world.

“It’s been a very tough decision to make but I’m happy now that the decision is made and we can move forward.”

He added: “The Tier 2 competition going into existence this year probably was another small little factor behind my decision to walk away. The GPA did surveys of the county teams and the result was a lot of the players were against that new motion.

“There’s small things like that that probably play on players’ minds. As players, we did vote against it as well and made the county board aware of it, but it came into play and the GAA went ahead with it.”

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