Damon Murphy (born 15 December 1984) is an Australian professional

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

referee and a former national captain for

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

rugby sevens Rugby sevens (commonly known simply as sevens, and originally seven-a-side rugby) is a variant of rugby union in which teams are made up of seven players playing seven-minute halves, instead of the usual 15 players playing 40-minute halves. R ...

. His usual position was on the

wing A wing is a type of fin that produces both Lift (force), lift and drag while moving through air. Wings are defined by two shape characteristics, an airfoil section and a planform (aeronautics), planform. Wing efficiency is expressed as lift-to-d ...

Family and early life

Damon Murphy was born in

Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

and educated at

Nudgee College St Joseph's Nudgee College (commonly referred to as Nudgee College or simply Nudgee) is an independent Catholic primary and secondary day and boarding school for boys, located in Boondall, a northern suburb of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Th ...

. His younger brother

Dallan Murphy Dallan Murphy (born 22 July 1988) is an Australian professional rugby union footballer. His regular playing position is fly-half Murphy won a Queensland Premier Rugby title playing for Brothers in 2009. He played for the Queensland Reds in the ...

also became a professional rugby union player.

Rugby career

Murphy played club rugby for

Brothers Old Boys Brothers Rugby Club (formally Brothers Old Boys) is an Australian rugby union club based in Brisbane, Queensland. The name alludes to its beginnings as a rugby club founded by alumni of schools established by the Congregation of Christian Brothe ...

, where, playing mainly at fullback, he was the club's all-time leading try scorer with 96 tries during his career there spanning eleven seasons. He was selected for the Australian 7s team in 2004. After three seasons, including representing his country at the

2006 Commonwealth Games The 2006 Commonwealth Games, officially the XVIII Commonwealth Games and commonly known as Melbourne 2006, were an International sport, international multi-sport event for members of the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth held in Melbourne ...

in Melbourne, he refocused on fifteen-a-side rugby and signed with the

Melbourne Rebels The Melbourne Rebels were an Australian professional rugby union team based in Melbourne, Victoria (state), Victoria that competed in the Super Rugby competition. The Rebels made their debut in SANZAAR, SANZAR's Super Rugby tournament in 2011. T ...

to play in the

Australian Rugby Championship The Australian Rugby Championship, often abbreviated to the ARC and also known as the Mazda Australian Rugby Championship for sponsorship purposes, was a domestic professional men's rugby union football competition in Australia, which ran for onl ...

. Resuming his career with the national sevens team, Murphy was Australia's leading points scorer in the 2007–08 World Series. He played in the

2009 Rugby World Cup Sevens The 2009 Rugby sevens World Cup was the fifth edition of the Rugby World Cup Sevens. The International Rugby Board (IRB) selected Dubai in the United Arab Emirates as the host venue for the tournament ahead of bids from four other countries. The f ...

. He also captained the side. Murphy played for the

Queensland Reds The Queensland Reds is the rugby union team based in Brisbane for the Australian state of Queensland that competes in the Southern Hemisphere's Super Rugby competition. Prior to 1996, they were a representative team selected from the rugby union ...

in 2012, although was not selected for Super Rugby.

Refereeing career

Murphy made a rapid rise up the refereeing ranks in 2016, making his debut with the whistle in both

Queensland Premier Rugby Queensland Premier Rugby is a semi professional club rugby union competition in Queensland, Australia. Nine clubs play in the competition, eight clubs are from Brisbane, and one club is from Gold Coast.The premiership has been contested in i ...

and Australia's

National Rugby Championship The National Rugby Championship, known as NRC, was an Australian rugby union competition. It was contested by eight teams, seven from Australia and one from Fiji. The tournament ran from 2014 until 2019 before being disbanded in 2020 following t ...

in that year. He joined the

World Rugby Sevens Series The SVNS, known as the HSBC SVNS for sponsorship reasons, is an annual series of international rugby sevens tournaments run by World Rugby featuring national sevens teams. Organised for the first time in the 1999–2000 season as the IRB World ...

referees panel for the 2016–17 season.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Murphy, Damon 1984 births Australian rugby union referees ARU referees Australian rugby union players Australia international rugby sevens players Male rugby sevens players Commonwealth Games rugby sevens players for Australia Living people Rugby union players from Brisbane Rugby sevens players at the 2006 Commonwealth Games Super Rugby referees Rugby union fullbacks People educated at St Joseph's College, Nudgee 21st-century Australian sportsmen