It all started late last week with Robert Murphy being named as a travelling emergency when the teams were announced on Thursday afternoon. It was enough to put the footy media into a spin.
Come game day, Murphy was indeed set to spend the day in a club standard polo on the sidelines before Jason Johannisen felt some uneasiness in his hamstring moments before the bounce.
And all of the sudden, Murphy was in.
Speaking to the media after the Bulldogs’ 14-point win over the Lions on Saturday, Luke Beveridge explained the unusual sequence of events.
“He [Johannisen] just bent over to pick up a ball before we even started the warm up and just felt a little bit uneasy at the top of the hamstring but he wasn’t sure, so we warmed him up,” he said.
“He warmed up and looked like he was going ok but he still felt a bit compromised and we couldn’t take the risk with him in the end.
“It looks a bit orchestrated doesn’t it, but that’s the way it unfolded.”
Beveridge sought out Lions coach Chris Fagan ahead of the bounce to explain the situation.
“Normally I wouldn’t tell an opposition coach but ‘Fages’ was walking across the ground, it was pretty close to the start of the game, and we don’t normally play ducks and drakes, I had a quick chat to him,” he said.
“So he knew about it at that point in time as well.”
In the end, Murphy was a key performer on a day when the Dogs’ needed his experience and clean ball use, particularly in the last quarter, to finally put away a determined Lions outfit.
“I thought Bob did a great job off of an interesting preparation, thought he played really, really well,” the coach said.
“And that last quarter where we needed a bit of experience and a bit of steely nerve, I thought he was brilliant.”
Beveridge said on Thursday that he was looking to give Murphy a rest at some point on the run home, but whether his inclusion in Brisbane meant he would miss Friday’s clash with GWS, Beveridge remained coy.
“Maybe, maybe, we’ll see. Hopefully he’s alright, hopefully he comes up better this week than he did last week.”
