Retired Carlton midfielder Marc Murphy has opened up on the club’s peak during his tenure, the decision to sack coach Brett Ratten, the appointment of Mick Malthouse and the struggles that followed.
In an in-depth interview with former teammate Dylan Buckley on his podcast Dyl and Friends, Murphy revealed that when he was appointed club captain in 2013, Malthouse told him to his face that he wanted someone else in the role.
The 300-gamer added that the decision to move on from Brett Ratten was the wrong one, coming off one poor season.
The year before Ratten’s sacking, Carlton finished fifth and were one kick away from a Preliminary Final berth, despite missing key pillars Bryce Gibbs, Matthew Kreuzer and Jarrad Waite.
On the back of that, 2012 did not go Carlton’s way, with injuries and a form slump in the middle of the year compounding. They missed finals and the Blues made the flinch decision to part ways with Ratten in favour of the Collingwood legend.
Malthouse coached 54 games at Carlton, winning 20 including one final, but the situation spiralled downward quickly across 2014 and 2015.
On the call to sack Ratten, Murphy said: “It was definitely the wrong decision.”
“2011, you need luck at the pointy end of the season and (Gibbs) and (Kreuzer) both missed that semi-final over in the West.
“You need your best players and you see that with the teams that go on and win it. Like, very few of them are missing two of the six best players in the team.
“We were stiff, we missed by two or three points against West Coast and then, I know it’s all ifs and buts, but you get through that game and you play Geelong at the ‘G the following week and we’d played against them and we were too quick for the Cats. You never know in a Prelim what happens, but I thought we had their measure at that point, we were probably a bit more dynamic.
“Our forwards were pretty incredible. The three amigos (Chris Yarran, Jeff Garlett and Eddie Betts), we had Jarrad Waite, some pretty talented players in there. They wouldn’t have got overawed by the occasion because they just played footy and had great chemistry down there.
“Our midfield was pretty dynamic and so you never know what happens from there. I think Collingwood were easily the best side that year, so whether or not you win the Prelim and you play against Collingwood, who knows what happens in a Grand Final.”
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Murphy believes poor injury luck hampered the Blues early in 2012 and left them with too much to do towards the end.
“So, we missed a couple of our best players, miss out on that, 2012, we played against Essendon, we won our first three, that was when they were looking pretty big and pretty fit at that point in 2012 and Andrew Carrazzo, broken shoulder, and then Jeremy Laidler hurt his knee and a couple of weeks later I did my shoulder, there was maybe one or two others,” he said.
“Good sides can cover losses so we probably weren’t at that level, but the depth, we just missed finals, tough year, but I think because we were expected to go on from 2011 to 2012, we were premiership favourites after Round 3, we had just smacked Collingwood…”
“We were flying, then the midway point of the year we organised a bit of a lock-in with the boys to try and change something up and we went on a bit of a run, but just missed finals.
“And then the decision to get Mick was like, ‘he can take us to the next level’, that was the thinking with the hierarchy at the time, but I just think the support needed to be better around Ratts to help him. I think that was the way forward.
“I know hindsight, it’s easy to say that now because everyone at the time was thinking Mick was one year out of coaching, he’s the guy who’s been proven to get teams to Grand Finals, you could understand that decision at the time.”
Murphy was always seemingly in line to replace Chris Judd as Carlton captain at some point, but Malthouse evidently had other plans when he took the reins.
“I had a great relationship with Ratts and I was sort of left a little bit disappointed, I’d spoken with Ratts and Juddy quite a bit throughout that 2012 year about taking over the captaincy after that year,” he said further.
“I was pretty excited about doing that underneath Ratts and it all sort of changed.
“I just think there had been so much investment in Ratts and we were progressing really well and unfortunately through injury and circumstance, I think it was too quick to just go ‘nah, we’ll go in another direction’.
“I think the support and the communication needed to be better at that time. I was never one for going upstairs and getting involved in all of that chat, I was dealing with coaches, not necessarily getting involved with CEOs and the rest of it … but I think it was a bad move.
“I haven’t really listened to too much of what Mick has had to say post leaving the footy club because what’s the point, but he probably would’ve said that he would’ve chosen a different captain at the time and he even said that to me at the time when I got appointed captain.
“He would’ve gone with someone else, but because they weren’t going to be featuring regularly in the side, he couldn’t go down that path.
“So initially when you get told you’re captain, you’d like to be a positive period, so it wasn’t a great start, but that was his prerogative.
“Would’ve been nice for him to turn up to a leadership group meeting now and again.
“But there’s no point me coming out and bashing Mick Malthouse, he’s obviously one of the great coaches of all-time, he’s got the record for longest coaching, so what am I going to do coming out and slamming him, but his time at Carlton, I don’t think he was really in it for the right reasons and once it turned pear-shaped, it was all about him unfortunately at the end and I was left to be thrown at the bus quite a bit.
“He was obviously a terrific coach, but for Carlton and for me and the boys, it just didn’t work out.”
Murphy retired at the conclusion of the 2021 season with 300 games to his name, all for the Blues.
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