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Bob stayed. Others left; some were pushed, others were poached. One just couldn't live in the kennel any more and made a Giant move.
But Bob didn't, Bob stayed. Ever so briefly Bob thought about going when Collingwood asked if he would like to come and play, because all good dogs like it when someone scratches them on the belly. But Bob is a loyal dog, and a smart one, he knows rewards come to dogs that learn to sit and stay.
The rewards could come sooner than Bob thought. In fact Bob doubted they would come at all, figuring that staying might cost him a chance to play finals but uncomfortable with the idea he could be anywhere else.
Bob became captain because his club needed him to. Bob became captain because he should and because he was the best one for the job. And because, well, he was that kind of Dog. He was the dog that embodied the best of the Dogs.
That's why he stayed and why it was right that he stayed and why right now the best thing for the game would be for Bob to play finals again and win.
Maybe there are years left yet for Bob to taste the sort of success he has never known and thought he never would. He has a contract next year but a spring still in his wiry step that says next year might not be his last. His once creaking body is newly elastic and so he remains – with some deft osteopathic help – as quick now as when he walked in from Warragul.
The Dogs are now only a game off the top four – farcical to consider in the darkest moments at the end of last season – and set to play finals. The highest Bob's generation of Dogs could reach was a preliminary final but with the speed the wheel has turned already for the Dogs it is not unrealistic to think that within Bob Murphy's final two seasons the Dogs could go beyond that. That would be the romance football needs. When Brian Lake won a Norm Smith medal at Hawthorn it was a feel-good story: recycled player achieves dream. But that warm tale would be a limerick compared to Bob and the Premiership Dogs.
Lenny Hayes was in Bob's position. He could have gone, but he chose to stay. He didn't get the success for staying, but he did get the satisfaction. He does not criticise those who left the club as some were wilfully pushed and for others it was right to go. But like Nick Riewoldt and even Leigh Montagna there needed to be room left in the change rooms for those who carry the story of the club, not just the game plan.
Those Saints, like Bob Murphy and Matthew Boyd and Dan Giansiracusa, were reminders that list management could not be a purely economic rationalist endeavour. Someone needs to embody what you are.
"You spend so long at a club you become part of the fabric of the place, you build relationships and you want to do well not only for your own satisfaction. No one is more that sort of player than Bob Murphy. He buys into what the club is about, it comes through in his articles. I loved his articles," Hayes said. "He loves the old school element of football and you would love to see that rewarded. The wheel has turned fairly quickly at the Bulldogs, I think even Bob said he didn't expect it to turn so quickly.
"He looks like he is getting better, he is playing as well as he has ever played. It's like a new lease of life for him."
For Hayes the reward in the Dogs' wheel turning so quickly is not only seeing Bob be given this chance at success but that his team be rewarded for the way they play. "I love the way they attack off half-back with Bob and Johannisen and Easton Wood, they are good to watch."
Bob the Premiership Dog. That is a story even Bob thought would not be written but now it is one football would love to read. Maybe not this year, but maybe next year or the one after, for he is still a spritely dog. And he knows how to stay.
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