Unfortunately she picked up a stomach complaint, and is ruled out of the Dave McCullough meet at UL Limerick.
The 17-year-old, voted the Irish Times Sportswoman of the Year in 2010, collected two bronze medals in the European Short Course championships in Eindhoven at the end of November and plunged back into her heavy training programme which included a trip Down Under with the UL performance squad.
Murphy, along with seven others from UL, travelled with coach Ronald Claes to work with Australia’s legendary coach Dennis Cottrell, the inspiration behind the great Grant Hackett, three times Olympic gold medallist and holder of 10 world swimming championship titles.
Hackett’s two individual Olympic gold came in the demanding men’s 1,500 freestyle, thus Cottrell was in a good position to advise Murphy who is also a distance swimmer.
