Graham Murray

Graham Murray

Murray in 2008
Personal information
Nickname	Muz
Born	6 January 1955 (1955-01-06) Sydney, Australia
Playing information
Height	171 cm (5 ft 7 in)
Weight	75 kg (11 st 11 lb)
Position	Halfback
Club
Years	Team	Pld	T	G	FG	P
1976–1980	Parramatta Eels	46	9	0	0	27
1981–1983	South Sydney	43	7	0	0	21
	Total	89	16	0	0	48
Coaching information
Club
Years	Team	Gms	W	D	L	W%
1991–1995	Illawarra Steelers	95	51	5	39	54
1997	Hunter Mariners	18	7	0	11	39
1998–1999	Leeds Rhinos	59	43	1	15	73
2000–2001	Sydney Roosters	57	31	1	25	54
2002–2008	North Queensland	161	79	1	81	49
	Total	390	211	8	171	54
Representative
Years	Team	Gms	W	D	L	W%
1995	Fiji	3	1	0	2	33
2001–2005	City Origin	5	3	0	2	60
2006–2007	New South Wales	6	2	0	4	33
Source: Rugby League Project and Yesterday's Hero

Graham Murray (born 6 January 1955) is an Australian rugby league player and coach. Murray is currently the High Performance Unit Director of Coaching at the Newcastle Knights.

Playing career

Having starred for the Parramatta third-grade side in the middle 1970s, Graham Murray took over as captain of the Eels' reserve grade side in 1977 and was regarded as too skilful for reserve grade rugby league owing to his great organisational ability, which had him known as "little Artie" after Arthur Beetson. With international halfback John Kolc suffering ankle ligament damage, Murray spent some time in first grade during 1977, but returned to captain the reserve grade side to a premiership when Kolc was fit.

1978 saw Murray take over from Kolc as first grade halfback for most of the year, but the emergence of soon-to-be champion Peter Sterling caused him to flirt between the grades in 1979 and 1980, but in the former year he captained the reserves to their third premiership in five years. Murray moved to Souths in 1981 and played fairly regularly in first grade until he left at the end of 1983 to play in the country.

Club coaching career

After previous appointments as reserve grade coach at Penrith (where he won a premiership in 1987 and helped develop many of the future 1991 first-grade premiership team) and Balmain, Murray was made coach of Illawarra in 1991. He guided the club to its first finals appearance in 1992 and during his tenure, the Steelers always won more games than they lost. He was dismissed as coach in April 1995 after he facilitated negotiations between Steelers players and representatives of the rebel Super League organisation. He was the only person out of the countless players, coaches and administrators involved with the Super League saga to lose his job as a direct consequence.

Installed as coach of Super League's Newcastle-based Hunter Mariners team, Murray was able to construct a competitive team despite the apathy of the local community who were mostly supportive of the Newcastle Knights still playing in the Australian Rugby League's premiership. Although they made the final of the World Club Challenge in their first season, the Mariners were shut down as a condition of the establishment of the National Rugby League.

Left without a team to coach in Australia, Murray joined the Leeds Rhinos in the European Super League, directing the team to a Rugby League Challenge Cup victory and a Super League grand final place. He signed a deal to coach the North Sydney Bears for National Rugby League season 2000. However, before he could take up this position, the club was excluded from the competition and forced to merge with the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles. After the resignation of Phil Gould as coach of the Sydney Roosters, Murray was quickly named as his replacement.

In 2000, Murray proceeded to guide the Roosters to their first grand final since 1975, although they would lose 14–6 to the Brisbane Broncos. Despite a sixth-place finish in 2001, Murray was sacked by the Roosters two days after the end of the season.

After starting 2002 in his former profession as a teacher, he was made head coach of the North Queensland Cowboys to replace the sacked Murray Hurst in April. After three seasons of steady improvement, the Cowboys made the NRL finals for the first time in 2004 and finished one game short of the grand final. They improved on their efforts in the following season, reaching the 2005 NRL Grand Final, the Cowboys' first, which they lost to the Wests Tigers by 34 points to 16.

In 2006 Murray was named coach of the Illawarra Steelers "Team of Steel", celebrating their 25th Anniversary.

In National Rugby League season 2006 the Cowboys missed the finals and finished in ninth position.

Cowboys' CEO Peter Parr announced that 2008 would be Murray's final year with the North Queensland Cowboys, with the club seeking to move in a different direction. The club announced that Murray would be replaced by Murray's former assistant, current Canberra Raiders coach, Neil Henry from 2009. On 19 May, after a poor start to the season, Murray quit the North Queensland Cowboys.

He was appointed the Newcastle Knights High Performance Unit Director of Coaching for the 2012 season.

Representative coaching career

Graham Murray was the coach of the Fiji team in the 2000 Rugby League World Cup, winning one game and losing two.

Murray was appointed coach of the New South Wales State of Origin team for the 2006 series; despite winning the first game by just one point (17-16) they lost the series to Queensland by two games to one. Murray was re-appointed as New South Wales coach in 2007 with the full support of the North Queensland Cowboys board. Once again New South Wales lost the series by two games to one. In August 2007, Murray announced that he would step down as coach of New South Wales.

Murray was also the NSW City Origin coach from 2001 to 2005. City won the annual contest against Country Origin in 2002, 2003 and 2005.

In 2010 Murray was appointed as the head coach of the Australian women's rugby league team.

Sources

• Gary Lester (editor) (1983). The Sun Book of Rugby League – 1983. Sydney, New South Wales: John Fairfax Marketing. p. 78. ISBN 0909558833. 

References

Preceded by Ron Hilditch 1989–1990	Coach Illawarra Steelers 1991–1995	Succeeded by Allan Fitzgibbon 1995
Preceded by team created	Coach Hunter Mariners 1997	Succeeded by team demised
Preceded by Dean Bell 1995–1996	Coach Leeds Rhinos 1997–1999	Succeeded by Dean Lance 2000–2001
Preceded by Phil Gould 1995–1999	Coach Sydney Roosters 2000–2001	Succeeded by Ricky Stuart 2002–2006
Preceded by Murray Hurst 2001–2002	Coach North Queensland Cowboys 2002–2008	Succeeded by Ian Millward 2008–
Preceded by team recreated	Coach City Origin 2001–2005	Succeeded by Tim Sheens 2006–
Preceded by Ricky Stuart 2005	Coach New South Wales Origin 2006–2007	Succeeded by Craig Bellamy 2008–2010