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Fri 07 Jul 2007Murphy's 68 leaves him leading the home chargePhilip Reidwatched as Kilkenny's finest soloed up the leaderboard until he was brought back to earth at the 14thFor a time in yesterday's first round, Kilkenny's Gary Murphy got into a zone not dissimilar to that which Henry Shefflin and his team-mates regularly occupy on the hurling pitch. Murphy could do no wrong, stringing together a sequence of four successive birdies that had him charging up the leaderboard and within tantalising reach of the first-round pacesetter, Maarten Lafeber.