Yes, Murphy specialised in the long range point.Plain of the Herbs wrote: Brendan made 98 appearances for Offaly (45 championship, 53 league). He scored 10-58 in championship and 6-73 in the league, all from play. There was something inspirational about a Murphy point from distance, in the way he seemed to wind up for the stroke. Something that made you shout "go on Murph" on an otherwise dreary day.
These were extra useful as Offaly generally didn't have many players who could stick it over from middle or long distances.
Also, there were several games when Offaly were doing a lot of chasing and not getting to do much heads up hurling, so for Murphy to snap over a point out of the blue was always an extra fill up.
I've often wondered how things would have panned out had Offaly gone for a change in style around the 2003 or 2004 era.
Cork under Donal O'Grady realised they hadn't got an abundance of high ball winners, so adjusted to a more controlled and possession oriented style of hurling. Instead of banging everything hopefully out of their half, they ran it a lot more from midfield and gave shorter measured ball to their forwards.
Key to this gameplan were bullet quick ball carrying midfielders - Tom Kenny and Ben O'Connor.
Offaly had Murphy and Rory Hanniffy who could have excelled in this role. Unfortunately Offaly never seemed to move far from the 'lift and lash' style of hurling and continued to sink as the game evolved to being more possession and power oriented.