link

BULLDOGS captain Bob Murphy is one of the AFL’s most loved players but he has still copped some stinging — and occasionally hilarious — sledges during his 295-game career.

Some are from the usual suspects but others you probably don’t expect.
Today he revealed the five greatest sledges he has been on the end of on the footy field.

Counting down ...

5. NICK RIEWOLDT


The normally ice cool St Kilda champ didn’t appreciate a column Murphy wrote that week naming a team of his best 22 players in the AFL — in which he picked a young Hawthorn forward ahead of Riewoldt.

“Halfway through the second quarter we crossed paths and Nick turned to me and said, ‘And you, I’m right off you,’ and he had real passion in his voice,” Murphy said on radio.

“He said, ‘How I didn’t make that 22 is beyond me.’
“As he ran away I just heard under his breath ‘Jack f-ing Gunston’.”


4. JUSTIN KOSCHITZKE


Murphy said ‘Kosi’ “was not renowned as the sharpest thinker or the sharpest with his tongue” on the footy field but he came up with a beauty after the Dogs veteran gave him a serve during another Bulldogs v St Kilda game.

“At one point we were standing next to each other and he was mouthing off to a younger player about goalscoring and I said, ‘Kosi, mate, you should be the last bloke who is giving a bit of lip.

“He just turned and said, ‘Murph, you’ve got a head the size of a Mintie.

“A minute later the ball got kicked out and I heard over my shoulder, ‘Someone get Mintie’. That’s the essence of a good sledge, it can be quite distracting.”

3. JESSE HOGAN

Murphy made an exception for this great sledge from the Demons forward even though he didn’t actually hear it at the time.

“The TV cameras picked it up and the public let me know about this one.

“Jesse was having a set shot and I said something to do with him being the great white hope, really highbrow stuff to try to put him off his kick.

“Of course he put it straight through and he ran right past me and said, ‘There’s your great white hope’ (pointing to million-dollar recruit Tom Boyd). Unfortunately, Tom wasn’t going so well and he was being subbed off at the time.”

Murphy said he felt a lot better telling the story after Boyd’s matchwinning performance in last year’s Grand Final.

2. STEVE JOHNSON


The GWS goalkicker, and former Geelong champ, makes the list for “sustained excellence”.

Murphy said he had been on the end of plenty of Johnson classics over the years and one night “he gave me the full Stevie J show”.

“At one point he walked around boundary line and hid behind the point post. He walked up to me afterwards and said, ‘Did you see me sneak on?’. I said, ‘Well, clearly not’ and he just looked at me with a wink and said, ‘It was quite rascallish, wasn’t it?” — a play on Murphy’s rascal of the week segment on AFL360.


1. BEN HUDSON

Coming in at No. 1 is the four-club ruckman who spent four seasons at the Bulldogs from 2008-11, giving Murphy a front-row seat to his constant sledging.

“Ben Hudson was the greatest sledger I ever played with,” Murphy said.

“We played Richmond one night and Ben was prolific, he was constant and pretty harsh, and he picked on some young Richmond kid, who shall remain nameless ... about being ugly, basically.

“He just kept at him and at him and within earshot of me and the umpire Huddo said, ‘Mate you’re so ugly, you’re almost as ugly as Murph’.

“The Richmond player looked at me, I looked at him, the umpire looked at both of us and we all started laughing, it was a bit of a fiasco.”