Murdoch was a boy locked in a huge man’s body
Prop’s downfall among the bleakest chapters in All Blacks’ history.
OPINION: The story of Keith Murdoch is one of the saddest in New Zealand rugby.
In 1972, just 29 years old, his life changed forever, when he became the first, and so far the only, All Black sent home from a tour in disgrace. Until his death last week he would spend most of the rest of his life in Australia, forever avoiding the spotlight.
Those who knew him best, like the late All Black Lin Colling, said that he was basically a boy in a massively powerful, 110kg international prop’s body.
Colling once told me that when he and Murdoch played together for Otago in the late 1960s and early ’70s, Murdoch was the go-to man for fathers in the team who needed a babysitter. ‘‘I think that’s when he was happiest, playing with kids.’’
Murdoch told Colling how, growing up much bigger than his peers, he’d be teased at school. Lacking the ability to strike back with words, he’d snap and hit a tormenter. Teachers saw the results of a big boy hitting a little boy, and tagged Murdoch as a bully.
It was behaviour that would sometimes surface when Murdoch was an adult.
In 1971 journalist Chris Gaskell, who Murdoch would have outweighed by 40kg, politely approached Murdoch for a brief interview after a club game in Dunedin.
Murdoch nodded towards the changing sheds. Once inside he grabbed Gaskell, who was dressed in a suit and collar and tie, and, without a word, dragged him into the communal showers, and held him until Gaskell was drenched.
On the ’72-73 tour another Kiwi journalist, Norman Harris, made the mistake of correcting Murdoch at a hotel desk in Peebles in Scotland. Murdoch was pretending to be a fellow All Black Graham Whiting. Harris said to the receptionist, ‘‘It’s K. Murdoch.’’
In a flash, Harris would later write: ‘‘Murdoch reached out a huge hand, grasped my scalp, and with a swift downward movement deposited me on the floor.’’
The bare facts of Murdoch’s expulsion in ’72 are muddied. In the early hours of a drunken Saturday night, Sunday morning celebration at the Angel Hotel in Cardiff, after the All Blacks had beaten Wales 19-16, with Murdoch scoring the only try, there was a scrap in the kitchen, and a security guard, Peter Grant, emerged with a seriously black eye. Some say Murdoch was looking for more alcohol. Colling, more logically, said he was looking for food.
At 6pm on that Sunday, December 3, the All Blacks manager, Ernie Todd, after a day considering possible consequences, named Murdoch in the All Blacks side for the next game, against West Midlands on the Wednesday.
But not long before 10am on the Monday, Murdoch climbed the steps to the team bus, waved a hand, and said: ‘‘Hooray boys, I’m off.’’
Todd, after promising team captain Ian Kirkpatrick that while Murdoch would be severely reprimanded, he would stay, had changed his mind. On many occasions since Kirkpatrick has said how much he regrets not saying, ‘‘If Keith goes, we all go.’’
Murdoch didn’t fly back to New Zealand. Until his death this week he lived mostly in Australia.
Various attempts were made by New Zealand journalists to get his side of the story. The legendary Terry McLean, who never lost his hunger for a scoop, tracked Murdoch to an oil drilling site inland from Perth. ‘‘Who brought this c... up here?’’ snarled Murdoch. With a spanner in his hand he told McLean to ‘‘keep f...ing moving.’’ McLean did.
Fellow All Blacks Tane Norton and Kirkpatrick organised a video they sent to Murdoch, hoping he might come back to New Zealand for a team reunion. Murdoch never replied. The only journalist I know of who actually interviewed Murdoch in his self imposed exile is Margot McRae.
We were working together on a television show, Mud And Glory ,in 1990, when Margot went to Tully, in Queensland, and spent 45 minutes talking with him. (In 2007 she wrote a wonderful play, Finding Murdoch, about the whole episode).
Oddly, while Margot says Murdoch was ‘‘absolutely affable and pleasant’’ he wouldn’t allow the interview to be filmed. ‘‘He was a deeply shy person, not very articulate. He felt it was better to be quiet than be embarrassed. He was not going to come home and be confronted by reporters.’’
The next day she returned with her film crew, in an attempt to get some footage, a decision she immediately regretted.
‘‘He was out in the bush, slashing away with a machete. The camera crew were a hundred yards behind me, but they were afraid. Then he heard me. The slashing stopped and there was this moment’s silence. Then he just ran away.’’
Has there been a more melancholy image from a former All Black’s life?