00:00Hello, I'm Andrew Moyer and the Board of Mail is looking at the Ovens Murray Football and Netball
00:04League's 30 most underrated players of the past 30 years. Now, each club has three representatives
00:09including North Albury's Robbie Murray and we caught up with Robbie. Hi Robbie, how are you mate?
00:13I believe you turned 50 just last month too. I did, yes. Happy birthday. Thank you. Celebrate it well?
00:19I did, yeah, yeah. Combined with the wife, we were both 50, not far apart, so we had a combined
00:2650s, which, yeah, it was a good night. Good on you. And how's life treating you in general, mate?
00:30Yeah, pretty good. Yeah, just working and involved here at North Albury. Myself and Corey Lambert
00:37are co-coaching the thirds and then I'm senior assistant to Tim's room head, so yeah.
00:43Not too busy. How do you, you obviously just like the pilots, don't you? Yeah, I do. I've got the
00:49kids
00:51playing netball and footy here as well, so yeah, it's good. Terrific.
00:56You might be talking about the most underrated players. How does that term sit with you, being
01:00underrated? Not too sure. It is a compliment. It is a compliment, but yeah, no, I'm just
01:06happy, you know, when I play, just to have the respect and, you know, not let the team-mates
01:13down when you jump on the field and play footy and, yeah, if they call me underrated, that's
01:19fine as much. You might have answered part of it there. How would you describe yourself
01:22as a player, mate? Yeah, just played my role for the team and, you know, whatever needed
01:28to be done, yeah, I just did it. I know speaking with a lot of the younger players who played
01:34with you, particularly in the early 2000s, they really saw you as an older brother type,
01:38almost a protector. Did you take great pride in trying to look after the kids?
01:43Yeah, I did, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, when I was a young fella coming up, I had Steve
01:51Patton was my first captain and, you know, really looked up to him and then Robbie Brown
01:56as well looked up to him as a young fella and, you know, I just sort of decided, well, that's
02:02what you do as an old fella. You look after the young guys and make sure that they're looked
02:06after. So, yeah, that's what I did.
02:08Terrific. I know you had an unusual kicking style. It was very effective. Did any coaches ever get
02:12in your ear about trying to change it?
02:15No, no, no. It was, like you said, it was effective and I got the job done, so, yeah.
02:19Fantastic. Tell us through what you love so much about North Ulrich footy netball, quite
02:25much.
02:26Yeah, just the people, really. You make lifelong friends and, yeah, just the memories when you
02:33finish your career and, yeah, you just look back, you know, I played lucky enough to play
02:39in two premierships and, you know, always, you know, try and catch up with the guys that
02:44you play with and, um, we've got, like I said, Corey involved again now and, um, Clint
02:50Ankhart's the president, so, you know, they were probably two of the closest, um, players
02:55that I hung around, so, yeah, it's good to be involved with them again, yeah.
02:59And we just saw Echo a moment ago. He's working here. He's about full time. He's cleaning out
03:03the sheds. He was, yeah. He does everything. He does everything here, yeah, yeah. He's
03:08taking some time off from work and putting his time in here now, so, you know, it's just
03:12another guy that loves the club. Oh, you've got to have them, don't you?
03:15You do, you do, yeah. Volunteers, yeah.
03:18Mate, I know you're so courageous. You used to back back into packs and also back into charging
03:23for forwards. Did you ever get any bad injuries from that?
03:27No, not from that, no. You just, um, just do what you've got to do.
03:30Yeah. Back back in the packs or, um, yeah, whatever. It was, yeah, no, no injuries from
03:36that, which was lucky. You played the 201 games. You always seem very durable. Did you
03:40have many injuries? Oh, I did. Um, not any soft tissue injuries. They were all, you know,
03:49bone. I did a, um, a wrist, shoulder and a knee. Okay. And pretty much, um, lost three
03:55years out of my career with those injuries. Yeah, right. Yeah, no, no soft tissue
04:00injuries until later on. Yeah, okay. What sort of, in, what sort of years did you miss?
04:06Well, three years or that? What sort of years were they, mate? Roughly?
04:10Uh, the years? Yeah, like, were they the 90s? The, the 2000s? Um, probably can't remember.
04:18Yeah, more so the 2000s, yeah. Yeah, sort of, 90s. I was only a young fella and pretty durable
04:25and, yeah, they're all sort of contact injuries. So, yeah, broken bones and stuff.
04:31I know when you played your 200th game in 2007, you were the only Indigenous player in the league
04:37history, going back to 1893, to do that. What did that mean to you? Um, I didn't know it
04:42at the time. Um, yeah, so when I was told it was, yeah, it was a great honour and, um,
04:49really humbling. Yeah, it was great. And what's your highlight at North Albury?
04:54Uh, definitely the two, two flags. Yeah. Um, and then, yeah, just the lifelong friends
04:59that I've made over the journey. Fantastic. Just take it through those two flags. Great wins,
05:0399. Yeah, 99, sort of. 2002. Um, Arch Enemy and Albury, uh, sort of winning as the underdogs.
05:11Yeah. Um, yeah, and had won one for a while since, um, 84. So, yeah, it was a fair break
05:19in between
05:19and, yeah, it was, yeah, just a real great accomplishment, accomplishment. Especially,
05:24you know, playing all my junior football here at North Albury just meant, meant a lot. It was great.
05:29And then, yeah, 2002 when Rovers, I think again, we were the underdogs and, um, yeah,
05:36we got the job done again. It was, yeah, it was great. And that was really the, the, that Rovers
05:40team that was, you know, Rob Walker was getting right towards the end of his career. Yeah. So,
05:44you know, still coming up against some really big names. Yeah. Yeah. They had, um, you know,
05:48Robbie Walker and the Wilson brothers and, um, Pasquale. Um, yeah, so they, you know, really
05:56formidable, formidable outfit. And, um, yeah, we were just lucky enough to get the win on the day,
06:01which was great. And mate, you played three reserve grade games in 2022 as a 46 year old,
06:07I should say two, you absolutely dominated. Why'd you come back and do that? Just to help the club
06:11out. Um, a lot of other clubs around the league as well, you know, struggling for seconds players.
06:19Um, we were one of those and, um, yeah, um, Brendan McClain was the coach at the time and
06:26he did soften me after a few weeks of asking and I thought, yeah, I'll give it a go. And,
06:31um, as I
06:32said before, um, all my injuries early days were bone. And then those, one of the last of those three
06:40games was when I'd done the hammy. So for the first time, and I did not know whether it was
06:45a cramp
06:45or what it was and yeah, that, that ended my career. You said that's it? That's it. That's it.
06:50Hey, you spoke about being the assistant coach to Tim Broomhead. I mean, obviously, uh, 24, 25,
06:55Hopper's got back into finals, a slow start this year. How has footy changed? You know,
07:01you're right at the heart of it there as an assistant. How has footy changed now,
07:052026 to when you started in the nineties? Um, yeah, not a great deal. The style of playing
07:10everything, um, you know, it's, it's not rocket science. You just do all the little things well
07:15and move the ball as quickly as you can to give you forwards, you know, every opportunity to, um,
07:21get a score on the board. And, but yeah, as it's more so, you know, the professionalism
07:27off field probably changed a bit, um, recovery and those type of things. So, um, actual game days,
07:35yeah, it hasn't really changed a great deal. Probably, you know, a little bit quicker and
07:39the bodies are bigger and, um, the kids are taller. Yeah, so it's, that's probably the,
07:46the difference that I can see. Yeah, yeah.
07:47Terrific. Robbie, thanks so much for taking your time out as one of the 30 most underrated
07:51players in the past three years. Well done.
07:53Thanks, mate. Thanks, Robin.
07:55No worries.
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