Fremantle head of football operations and performance Bob Murphy says he intends to “observe and absorb” over his early days with the Dockers, rather than initiate widespread change.
Citing the “magnetic pull of football,” Murphy had sought an opportunity to get back into a club after two and a half years as the SEN Drive co-anchor.
“It’s a bit of a trap,” Murphy told SEN’s Gilly and Goss.
“To come into a football club that has been doing a lot of things right for a long time, and say ‘this is how we’re going to do things", that’s tinged with a certain arrogance.
“It’s not innate to my personality.
“My way of operating is to come in and for the first little while, observe as much as I can, and absorb the history.
“That’s something that I’m really passionate about, the symbolism of football clubs and the power of storytelling.”
Murphy will link up with a relatively fresh coaching panel at Cockburn.
Former Collingwood assistant Justin Longmuir took over as the senior coach at the end of the 2019 season, and was joined by former teammate Josh Carr.
Premiership Bulldog Matthew Boyd has looked after the Docker defenders for the past season, while forwards coach David Hale was this off-season replaced by ex-Eagle Jaymie Graham.
“For the initial part, (my role is) to come in and see what this club is doing, see where people fit in,” Murphy specified.
“Then, when you see something you feel like you can have some impact in, and add something, that’s where I see myself at the moment.”
The port city with a bustling scene feels like a snug fit for Murphy, having ingratiated himself in Melbourne’s music and arts communities while based in Footscray as a player.
“At home we had the butcher paper out,” Murphy laughed.
“I thought ‘I want to get back into footy, we’d love to live near the beach, we want to give the kids a big family adventure.’
“We were coming up with different scenarios, then the call came from Fremantle and we had this moment of ‘… we really should have come up with this idea ourselves.’
“There’s a certain affinity I have with Fremantle. They are outsiders, in some way.”
Having spent 18 seasons with the Western Bulldogs as a player and the past two as a coach with the AFLW team, Murphy is soaking up an entirely new culture.’
“The best metaphor I can give you for starting a new job at a football club is starting a sitcom, but from season seven,” he explained.
“It all looks familiar, but there’s little clues that you just don’t quite understand the language yet, the jokes you’re just a half a beat off.
“Football clubs, for the most part, are like stock cars. They are similar in lots of ways, but there’s nuances everywhere where you have to pick up the feel of things.”