Murphy claims top honour

Murphy was a runaway winner in the count at Warrnambool Bowls Club on Wednesday night. He polled 28 votes with Woodford captain Nick Butters next best with 19. Merrivale pair Josh Stapleton and Jeremy Burgess and Nestles wicketkeeper-batsman Cameron Williams rounded out the top five with 14 voters each.

Murphy, 23, enjoyed a stellar season with both bat and ball. He scored 592 runs at an average of 49.32. He was an influential bowler for the Broncos, snaring 21 wickets at 16.19.  

After the win, Murphy paid tribute to East Warrnambool-YCW.

“I’m loving it at East Warrnambool-YCW, it’s a great challenge,” Murphy said.

“They are a great bunch of blokes and I couldn’t be happier with the club and what they have done for me.”    

Murphy began his career at Brierly-Christ Church, playing his first division one game in 2004-05. He went on to play 80 games for the Bulls before moving to East Warrnambool-YCW at the start of 2014-15 to take on the job of captain-coach. He enjoyed instant success, leading the Broncos to their first finals series since the club was formed in 1975-76. He took them to a grand final appearance where they went down to Woodford. 

This season the Broncos were able to back-up their good work, again making the finals, this time bowing out to Port Fairy in the semi-finals. Murphy won both the batting average and aggregate while his teammate Jason Alberts won the bowling average with 9.91 runs per wicket. Nirranda’s Jason Mungean won the bowling aggregate with 31 wickets while Cameron Williams from Nestles won the wicketkeeping award with 30 dismissals. Butters won the Melbourne country week cricketer of the week, Tyler Fowler (Woodford) and Harrison Bond (Allansford) shared the rookie of the year award.  The Glenn Denning best under 21 player award went to Ben Threlfall.