All Black who was sent home dies in Oz
Controversial former All Black Keith Murdoch has died at age 74.
Murdoch, a prop who played 27 matches for the All Blacks from 1970 to 1972 — including three tests — is the first All Black to have ever been sent home from a tour for disciplinary reasons. His sister confirmed the news of his death.
After scoring the only try in the All Blacks’ win over Wales in 1972, Murdoch was involved in a fight at a Cardiff hotel, being sent home from the tour by All Blacks management.
After an argument involving teammates, he punched a security guard who had earlier ordered him to leave when he went into the kitchen looking for something to eat in the early hours of the morning.
Instead of heading back to New Zealand, Murdoch moved to the Australian outback and has only been sighted publicly four times since 1972.
Yesterday, members of Otago’s Zingari Richmond rugby club, where Murdoch played club rugby for many years, put their flag at half mast, and posted tributes on Facebook.
Club chairman Stephen Baughan told the Weekend Herald they had received news of Murdoch’s passing yesterday morning.
“Some of the club members still have regular contact with [Murdoch’s] family. The exact circumstances are not yet clear,” he said.
The former front-rower is reported to have returned home to New Zealand in 1980 and saved a child from drowning in a swimming pool. It is believed that, by the late 80s, he was back in Australia.
In 2001 he was a witness at a coronial inquest into the death of an Aboriginal man, 20-year-old Christopher Limerick, in the Northern Territory. Murdoch had caught an Aboriginal man breaking into his home the night before Limerick disappeared.
Limerick’s remains were found at an abandoned mine. No charges were ever laid.
OBITUARY Keith Murdoch, 1933-2018
No All Black has ever been shrouded in mystery quite like Keith Murdoch.
Following his banishment from the tumultuous All Black tour of 1972-73, Murdoch lived a reclusive life in the back blocks of Australia.
Is not true to say he had never been back to New Zealand, but all attempts to get him back with his All Black teammates for even the most low key of gatherings have failed, all efforts by the media to coax him into telling “his side of the story” shunned.
And so we are left with the tales, and the images, notably the famous Peter Bush photograph of Murdoch at Euston Station en route to Heathrow and a plane bound for ignominy.
By the time the All Blacks arrived in the UK for their tour in late 1972, Murdoch was being portrayed as the caged wild man, and if the relentless media attention wasn’t enough, he immediately fell foul of team manager Ernie Todd.
“He really didn’t like Keith” recalls Tane Norton, “He thought he was uncouth”.
Ian Kirkpatrick puts it more bluntly. “He had his digs into Keith from the start”.
Murdoch, Todd, the media and the Welsh in particular, were on a collision course, and it came to a head in Cardiff on December 2, 1972.
The All Blacks had won the test at the Arms Park amid volcanic tension, thanks to a try by Murdoch and five penalties in a remarkable debut by 21-year-old fullback Joe Karam. The Welsh were fuming.
In the book Behind the Silver Fern, Bob Burgess describes how Murdoch was goaded by one of the Welsh front rowers who repeatedly questioned his ability and his intelligence, calling him, among other things, thick. Burgess was surprised Murdoch didn’t lash out then and there.
In the end, the All Blacks went back to the Angel Hotel to celebrate among themselves.
Around 1am Murdoch went into the kitchens looking for something to eat, where he was confronted by security guard Peter Grant, who ordered him to leave.
An argument began, and both the manager and other players were summonsed to try to quell the situation.
Prop Graham Whiting claimed to have quietened things down, before an “under the weather” Todd burst into the room, and without hesitation announced “that’s it Murdoch, this time you’re going home”.
According to Whiting, it was then that Murdoch decided if he was going, then then he was going to “make a job of it” and belted Grant.
Murdoch left for Heathrow where he boarded his flight, only to get off in Singapore and head for Darwin, and his self-imposed exile.
In 1979, Murdoch was credited with saving the life of a young girl, found drowning in a Timaru swimming pool, but again, he scarpered before any reporters could get near him.
Ten years later TVNZ journalist Margot McRae fared better, and managed to chat with Murdoch in a remote Queensland town, without being able to secure the breakthrough interview.
Then in 2001, Murdoch was called as a witness into the mysterious death of an Aboriginal man whom Murdoch had some weeks earlier caught trying to break into his house.
Christopher Limerick was found dead in an abandoned mine, and although Murdoch was not a suspect, there was inevitable speculation.
To a man, his mates on that turbulent 1972-73 tour will tell you of a great team man, a player of immense strength, certainly no angel, but not the monster he was portrayed as. A man not so much likely to start trouble, but who could be egged into it by others, and a man who constantly had to deal with drunken fans trying to bait him into a fight.
To the rest of us he will remain a man of enduring mystery.
● This is an updated version of a piece that first appeared in New Zealand Rugby World magazine, written by Sky TV commentator Tony Johnson, co-author of Behind the Silver Fern: The Players Speak.