\n Ben Murphy has become the third Irishman to join Brisbane\n <\/p>\n
Ben Murphy playing for Kerry. Picture: Brisbane Lions FC<\/p>\n
BRISBANE has signed teenage Irish star Ben Murphy, making him the third Irishman at the two-time premiers.<\/p>\n
Murphy, from Kerry, has been signed as a Category B rookie and will arrive fresh off playing against Geelong’s Mark O’Connor in the Kerry SFC final last week.<\/p>\n
The 191cm Murphy will start his life in Australia as a defender, but the Lions are confident he could play multiple positions.<\/p>\n
“He has been a midfielder in Gaelic, though with his size and athletic profile it should allow him to play multiple roles at AFL level,” said Lions scout Shane Rogers.<\/p>\n
“He will start as a defender initially whilst he learns the game but has scope to develop craft across a number of lines and the ability to play wing long term.<\/p>\n
“He stands at 191 centimetres and is growing, he has speed, has agility and an ability to read the game quickly.<\/p>\n
“One of the attractive aspects of his recruitment is his calm demeanour, especially when under pressure within the game that allows him to make excellent decisions.”<\/p>\n
Murphy will join countryman Conor McKenna and Darragh Joyce at the Lions, while the club also has three Irishwomen on their AFLW list; Neasa Dooley, Jen Dunne and Orla O’Dwyer\u00a0<\/p>\n
“AFL is similar enough to Gaelic, though I expect to face a few obstacles like getting used to a totally new ball – but I’m excited to face the challenge,” Murphy said.<\/p>\n
“There have been a number of players make the switch like Conor and Darragh already at the club. But there are also a few other players that I aspire to be like back in Kerry, like Mark O\u2019Connor, Cillian Burke (Geelong) and I went to school with Rob Monahan (Carlton) as well.<\/p>\n
“Seeing a person so close to you being successful really gives you the confidence that you can be too if you put your mind to it.”<\/p>\n
Murphy is the third addition to the Lions squad for 2016, with big-name free agents Oscar Allen and Sam Draper also making the move.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ben Murphy has become the third Irishman to join Brisbane Ben Murphy playing for Kerry. Picture: Brisbane Lions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85,83],"class_list":{"0":"post-259895","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-text"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}