Murdoch’s quiet year in NZ
Former All Black Keith Murdoch wasn’t the complete recluse he has been painted and spent a year living in New Zealand under the radar, according to his brother Bruce.
While popular legend has it that the three-test All Black spent the rest of his life exiled to Australia following his expulsion from the 1972 European tour, Murdoch actually visited his friends and family in New Zealand several times.
Bruce Murdoch told Stuff that the burly prop did come home and spent an entire year with his family during the 1970s.
‘‘He did come home, he was in New Zealand for a year or more,’’ he said.
‘‘He definitely did come home.’’ Murdoch, who was famously kicked out of the 1972 All Blacks tour of the UK and France after punching a security guard in Cardiff, died last month, aged 74. He was buried in Carnarvon, a coastal town nine hours’ drive north of Perth.
His former All Black teammates Grahame Thorne and Duncan Robertson both confirmed Murdoch visited New Zealand many times and his reclusive Australian lifestyle was more a myth than anything else.
‘‘He came back to see his mother, he came in and out of the country a few times,’’ said Robertson.
Murdoch’s dislike for attention and ability to slip under the radar meant his returns were often missed.
Former team-mate Graham ‘‘Moose’’ Whiting reportedly arranged a bushman’s job for Murdoch in Rotorua in the mid70s.
Thorne said Murdoch returned to do a crayfish run in the Chatham Islands and several other times he knew of.
Murdoch played three tests and
21 matches for the All Blacks between 1970-72, and had a distinguished provincial career for Otago between 1964-72, though he played one season for Hawke’s Bay
(1965) and one for Auckland (1966).