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  1. #1
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    Bulldogs have arrived, largely thanks to Captain Bob

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    I almost couldn't watch the Bulldogs v Hawks game last weekend. It was too intense, there was almost too much at stake, not just for the Bulldogs, whose last premiership is closer to the 19th century than our own time, but also for the AFL competition. I'd been telling people all week that if the Dogs collapsed, we could put down our footy glasses for 2016.

    What Alastair Clarkson's early success bought him was time and he used it to set up a factory of football excellence at Waverley. Now, it seems, he finally has a challenger who is as smart, as organised and as determined as he is in Luke Beveridge. The Bulldogs have a bulldog for a coach.

    What strikes me about Luke Beveridge is that he's not a product of what people in the AFL call "the system". He was in a government unit pursuing large-scale financial malpractice when he decided to indulge his interest in football and seriously pursue an AFL coaching career. He did an apprenticeship with the best in the business, Clarkson, and then returned to one of the three clubs he had represented as a battling player.
    Until Beveridge took over at the Dogs, Bob Murphy was widely regarded as a smart, skillful player who was, as they say, a bit out there. His father is a former priest, his mother a former nun. In his first year at the club, the AFL discovered the Bulldogs official team photo had a pale, freckled kid from Warragul in the back row with NO WAR written on his arm. It was the time of the first Iraq invasion. You can imagine how that went down in the AFL marketing department.

    Bob had also shown by this time that he was a writer of rare football prose. His writing is mostly described as quirky, but he's shown he's capable of a serious stand. I wrote an article last year saying that only the players could stop the booing of Adam Goodes. Bob Murphy responded with an article in this newspaper, saying the boos being heard weekly by Goodes were "blows to the soul". Bob wore Goodes' number when he tossed the coin that weekend. Je suis Adam Goodes. Brett Goodes, Adam's brother and a player on the Bulldog list in 2015, tweeted his thanks to Captain Bob.

    I see Bob from time to time and last December, after a long night of story-telling, I put the following hypothetical to him: "What would you have done if Adam Goodes had done a lap of the MCG on grand final day and the bloke beside you started booing him?" He surprised me somewhat by grabbing my lapel and, with his face close to mine, exclaiming: "Shut the f--- up! We can have the argument later." Bob's stared down some tough men in his 295 AFL games and I was more than persuaded that he, indeed, would have said it.

    He's been at the Bulldogs for 16 years. As a player, I first noticed him for the range of his skills. He was calm and clever. My most vivid memory of Bob as a young player would be four or five years into his career, Dogs v Hawks in Launceston. Bob is playing loose key forward. Hawthorn have matched him with bulky, belligerent Campbell Brown. The ball lobs high into the Dogs' half-forward line. Bob flashes past marking the ball in transit, arriving and leaving the scene before Campbell Brown's fist came through with destruction written all over it.
    Luke Beveridge found in Bob Murphy the captain he needed. Bob gave Beveridge what Brett Kirk gave Paul Roos at Sydney. He organised the ship below decks. He was the source of team morale. Who better to tell the Bulldog story and what might be achieved? Last year, I did a session with Bob at the Wheeler Centre in front of a packed house. You learn things about people when you're on stage with them. Bob combines humility and humour with a graceful physical presence. The audience couldn't get enough of him.

    His loss, whether it is for this season or longer, is enormous to the Bulldogs, both as a player and as a captain. Last year, his kicking was fast, accurate, visionary. Simultaneously, he set the tempo for his team as surely as a conductor does with his baton. If and when his young teammates lost their nerve, Captain Bob made another telling intervention with the ball and the momentum, the weight and direction of the match, was reversed. The result? Bob Murphy was All-Australian captain for 2015. More than once this week, he was described as the most popular player in the game.

    His knee buckled in the last 90 seconds of the game with the Bulldogs just ahead. Seeing him being helped from the ground, commentator Hamish McLachlan cried, "Even if the Dogs win, they lose now." Everyone seemed to understand that the injury, its timing, and the character of the match had somehow intertwined into a single act of fate. In one of the best matches, one of the best clubmen and captains had been struck down just as his team finally become contenders.

    I've seen finals that haven't been near last Sunday's game for sustained intensity. Every component of both teams was tested. The Dogs could easily have won but in the wake of Murphy's injury the loss seemed of little consequence to them. Beveridge told a reporter, "We're hurting for Bob."
    Picasso said you have to go to a lot of bullfights to see a great bull fight. You have to go to a lot of footy matches to see a great footy match and last Sunday's game was one of them. The good news, Captain Bob, is that your team has arrived. You got them there.
    FFC: Established 1883

    Premierships: AFL 1954, 2016 VFA - 1898,99,1900, 1908, 1913, 1919-20, 1923-24, VFL: 2014, 2016 . Champions of Victoria 1924. AFLW - 2018.

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  3. #2
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    Re: Bulldogs have arrived, largely thanks to Captain Bob

    He is the best feature writer in the country me thinks
    Listening to Brahm's 3rd Racket

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  5. #3
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    Re: Bulldogs have arrived, largely thanks to Captain Bob

    Great article thanks for posting BAD.
    It's better to die on our feet than live on our knees.

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  7. #4
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    Re: Bulldogs have arrived, largely thanks to Captain Bob

    Well that started off my weekend with a good cry.

  8. #5
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    Re: Bulldogs have arrived, largely thanks to Captain Bob

    Quote Originally Posted by Murphy'sLore View Post
    Well that started off my weekend with a good cry.
    No tears, but I did have the hair stand up on the back of my neck.
    It's better to die on our feet than live on our knees.

  9. #6
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    Re: Bulldogs have arrived, largely thanks to Captain Bob

    Good article, but with some liberties taken. Bob didn't start his career when we invaded Iraq for the first time........

    http://www.theage.com.au/articles/20...749880756.html

  10. #7
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    Re: Bulldogs have arrived, largely thanks to Captain Bob

    Quote Originally Posted by jeemak View Post
    Good article, but with some liberties taken. Bob didn't start his career when we invaded Iraq for the first time........

    http://www.theage.com.au/articles/20...749880756.html
    Good pickup
    FFC: Established 1883

    Premierships: AFL 1954, 2016 VFA - 1898,99,1900, 1908, 1913, 1919-20, 1923-24, VFL: 2014, 2016 . Champions of Victoria 1924. AFLW - 2018.

  11. #8
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    Re: Bulldogs have arrived, largely thanks to Captain Bob

    Quote Originally Posted by The Doctor View Post
    He is the best feature writer in the country me thinks
    Flanagan picks up a feeling that a few of us felt. The experience of watching that game was less pleasure from great skills but more an edgy feeling of brutal commitment. Certainly at the end of the game and still now, my predominant feeling is of tragedy, an enormous sense of loss of a great. Nothing is the same anymore.
    Wallis and Dalhaus are the only two that seem likely to carry my Bulldog heart in the void without Robert Murphy. Perhaps it will be the team itself that rises and fills that position of leader, of forging the way ahead.
    Footscray Football Republic.

  12. #9
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    Re: Bulldogs have arrived, largely thanks to Captain Bob

    Quote Originally Posted by Murphy'sLore View Post
    Well that started off my weekend with a good cry.
    My eyes are just a little sweaty, nothing to do with the article...
    Wake me up when we get to heaven, let me sleep if we're going to hell

    Good luck, for your sake I hope heaven and hell are really there, but I wouldn't hold my breath

    And we all found heaven - 2016 Premiers!

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