One of the handy players I was talking about in yesterday's post who has joined Wagga Waratahs this season.
Tom Murphy will bring six years of Shute Shield experience to Waratahs as he returns to the game for their Southern Inland title defence. Picture by Courtney Rees
Tom Murphy has led a side to the Shute Shield final and now he's ready to make his return to the game in Southern Inland.
Murphy is among the new faces at Waratahs this season, who will get their title defence under way against Tumut at Jarrah Oval on Saturday.
Murphy spent six seasons in first grade with Eastwood, including captaining the club in the 2020 grand final, and then played at a semi-professional level in Ireland before stepping away from the game in 2022.
However, as he will spend the next two years of his medical degree at Wagga Base Hospital, he thought it was the right time to return to the field.
"As is the story with anyone who moves to a new place it's a good way to meet new people and branch out from outside the hospital," Murphy said.
"I've had a few friends who have played at 'Tahs previously and they said it was a good club with a good social environment and they're pretty successful, so I thought I'd lob up to training."
It was a hard initiation for Murphy, who fractured his eye socket in his first training run with his new club.
However, the later start to the Southern Inland season has enabled him to recover in time for their first game.
"I copped a bit of an innocuous knock at training in pre-season that set me back a bit, but fortunately the late start to the season meant I didn't miss any comp games, which is good," Murphy said.
"It wasn't even a contact drill, which is the most embarrassing thing, I may have well been playing touch, but someone's head just dropped at the wrong time and copped me on the sweet spot."
Murphy will start at flanker to take on the Bulls in a rematch of last year's preliminary final.
The 30-year-old is unsure what to expect heading into the new competition.
"I don't know many other people playing in other teams, which is strange as when I was playing in Sydney I was playing against, you'd watch a lot of video and that kind of thing so maybe it's a bit of ignorance is bliss," Murphy said.
Start the conversation
"I don't know anything, I'm going into it a bit blindly but that's alright and I'm looking forward to that aspect of it to but from what I've seen the standard is good, there's some big fellas running around and if the rest of the teams are coached as well as Nick (McCarthy) has been coaching us then it will be a good competition."
Despite a tough start to the pre-season, McCarthy has been impressed by what Murphy has brought to the club.
He expects that will only continue as the season progresses.
"He's a quality guy first and foremost, he's fitted into the club really, and we're all aware of his ability and the level of footy he's played, so I expect him to just hit the ground running this weekend," McCarthy said.
"From all reports, and everything we've seen so far, there's no reason why that won't happen."
Tumut comes into the clash after a
47-15 win over Albury in round one.
With a much more similar line up to last year's side, McCarthy expects a tough test to start another title defence.
"It's a tough one first up, and we expect them to be big and strong and physical and have a raucous crowd supporting them, so we're just going in focusing on trying to kick off some KPIs for our first game around defence and set piece and just take our opportunities when they come," he said.
"We're also aware we're starting off behind the eight ball after a week off last week, it's been a long time since our last trial so we're fully expecting things to not be as clean as we would like but it's just a matter of staying in the fight for as long as we can and hopefully some of the structures we've embedded can shine through."
Murphy will be a part of a new-look forward pack with only Ben Frampton and Tom Menzies still in the side from
last year's grand final as Luke Turner is out suspended.
He received a three-game ban after being found guilty of leading with a forearm in the trial win over Goulburn in April.
He will also miss next week's clash with Griffith but will be free to play former club Ag College on for the COL Cup on May 24.
