‘Serious talent’: ‘Merv’s little mate’, Tim O’Brien, still going strong, 25 years after District debut
Tim O’Brien stood 151cm when he made his debut for Footscray in District cricket. Twenty-five years later, he’s still rolling out his leggies, as captain of Werribee in the Victorian Sub-District association.
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The headline writers dubbed him “Merv’s little mate’’.
Tim O’Brien stood 151cm when he played District cricket at Footscray with Merv Hughes, who, long retired from Test level, was 193cm and 120kg as he captained the seconds.
It was the 2000-2001 season and paceman Hughes, 38, and leg-spinner O’Brien, 14, were featured in the Herald Sun after the youngster took six wickets against Prahran.
Soon after he made his First XI debut for the Bulldogs, an extraordinary rise for the first-year tyke.
No one could recall such a youthful player appearing at the highest level of Victorian club cricket. And the fact that he bowled leggies made his entrance more notable.
“Twenty-five years ago? Yeah, I suppose it would be,’’ O’Brien says, noting how the years have piled up. In the case of his Dogs debut, they’ve already folded into two decades.
O’Brien is still bowling leg-spin, for Werribee in the Victorian Sub-District Cricket Association, and last Saturday took three cheap wickets.
For more than a decade he’s been one of the Subbies’ leading players.
It’s just that his batting more than his bowling has made him a cricketer of stature in the competition. He’s hit eight centuries and more than 5000 runs, owning the club’s highest VSDCA score of 183 not out, made in 2012-13. In that season he plundered 739 runs at 73.90. No Werribee player has achieved a higher aggregate.
“Merv’s little mate’’ grew up to be a fine cricketer, but his career has turned out a little differently to what might have been expected when he was photographed with his famous Second XI skipper, barely coming up to his chest.
“I landed them better back then than I do now, to be honest,’’ O’Brien, 38, says.
“Because I was so small, it took all my effort to get the ball down the other end and I could get them pretty much on a perfect spot.
“As I got older and grew a bit, that’s where the challenges came. You go through different stages where your confidence gets affected. It’s probably the toughest art in cricket. You need confidence to do it.’’
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Just as Tim O’Brien started young in District (now Premier) Cricket, he was 13 when he made his debut for Melton in the Sub-District association.
He had played juniors with a club called St Dominic’s and had his first game for Melton in the fourths when he was 11. His father, Shane, and brother, Matt, were already at the club.
O’Brien started as a wicketkeeper but in his second year began bowling leg-spin.
He was in the thirds at the start of the season, bypassed the seconds and was promoted to the firsts. The club dropped him back to the Third XI for the finals and he was part of a premiership.
“I was playing around in the backyard and trying a few leggies,’’ O’Brien says.
“I was always a short fella. I bowled medium-pace but I was never going to be a real quick, so I took up the leggies and went from there.’’
He was, he says, in “the Shane Warne era’’, when “everyone wanted to try leg-spin’’.
At 13 years and 220 days, O’Brien was the second-youngest cricketer to appear in Sub-District firsts, behind Ormond’s Anthony Meyer (13 years, 214 days).
Melton great Anthony “Butch’’ Gale says O’Brien was indeed tiny Tim.
“Geez he was small. He’s not much bigger now, let’s be honest,’’ he says.
“I’m watching the (Under 15) Craig Shield at the moment and those kids would dwarf over him. He was tiny. But geez he was a good bowler. He just landed them. Everything went against him – he was small in stature, he had small hands – but he had the knack for it. He could just bowl leg-spin.’’
Unsurprisingly, District clubs came calling.
He chose to go to Footscray and his speedy rise with the Bulldogs matched his advancement at Melton.
O’Brien started in the Third XI, joined Hughes in the seconds and in his first two matches took six wickets and then five.
His First XI debut came against Melbourne University. Uni piled up the runs, but the young leggie more than held his own, returning 0-41 off 19 overs.
Michael O’Keefe, Footscray’s captain at the time, remembers some reluctance to select O’Brien at such a young age.
“He was so tiny and I think that was one of the things we were a little bit cautious of … because he was so tiny and he was only 14, we were a little bit worried about throwing him in amongst it with the big boys,’’ he says.
“But, oh geez he had some talent. Serious, serious talent. His maturity at that age helped him as well. When he came in he was never overawed.’’
O’Keefe easily recalls O’Brien’s debut, saying he bowled “beautifully’’.
O’Brien’s first season with Footscray was filled with wickets. His second was tougher.
“I went from taking 40-something wickets to maybe 12 to 15,’’ he says.
“It was up and down. You lose a bit of confidence along the way. Getting hit when you’re a young leggie … it can affect your confidence and your bowling. It puts some negative thoughts in your head. I grew a bit and the balls that had been landing were becoming full-tosses. Instead of thinking positive – ‘I want to spin the ball past the bat’ – you’re thinking, ‘I don’t want to drop it short’. When you think like that, what do you? You drop it short.’’
But as his bowling stalled, his batting took off.
Being small, he had struggled to hit the ball off the wicket table, but greater strength brought him runs.
O’Brien was picked as a leggie for the Victorian Under 17 team in successive years, partnering Nathan Allen and then Josh Mangan. He was also selected for the Vic Under 19s for one season.
In 2005, O’Brien headed to Canberra to play club cricket, encouraged by his friend and future Tasmanian first-class player Mark Divin. He also captained the ACT’s Under 19s at the national carnival in Perth.
Returning to Melbourne, he again linked with Footscray, playing three more seasons and extending his games tally to 60 until he transferred to Melbourne University.
His best performance for Uni, an innings of 83 not out, showed his batting had superseded his bowling. He was chosen as the second spinner, he says, “and I got overs here and there’’.
“In the end, my batting sort of took over,’’ O’Brien says.
“If I was ever going to make it, that was the part it was going to be with, the leggies. Looking back, I probably should have kept working on my bowling. I should have worked harder on the leg-spinning craft. But no regrets. I still enjoy bowling them.’’
After the 2011-12 season, and after 30 games for Uni, O’Brien called it a day at District level and headed for Werribee and the Subbies.
He’s had a good time of it as a Tiger, as a player and leader.
In O’Brien’s first season back in the VSDCA, Werribee lost the grand final against his old club Melton.
Out of the running for a few years, the Tigers returned to the top rungs of the ladder in the Covid season of 2019-20, making the decider against Williamstown. It was cancelled and the flag was awarded to the higher-qualified Willy.
Twelve months later, Werribee was the talk of Sub-District cricket after shocking the unbeaten Kew in the grand final, holding it to 9-170 as it chased 8-174.
“We were the heavy underdogs. There was no pressure on us. No one expected us to win,’’ O’Brien, a plumber, says.
“We studied them and knew they hadn’t chased a lot. We thought if we could get a half-decent score on the board, who knows what could happen.’’
The Tigers’ premiership the following season was more straightforward after the Dean brothers opened the match against Ormond with an opening partnership of 162. Werribee also took the club championship after finishing third on the ladder in the firsts, first in the seconds, first in the thirds and second in the fourths.
O’Brien captained both flags (he had been captain-coach for five seasons).
With Mick Kelly going to Scotch College to coach, the skipper has bowled more this season than in previous years. He’s also steering the path of some young spinners, including offie Jackson Hopper, who has made the jump from the fourths to the firsts in 12 months.
“My role now is to help the kids and get their cricket to the next stage,’’ O’Brien says.
His batting helps. He’s hit 372 runs at 41.33 this season, including a century against his old mob Melton.
O’Keefe has followed O’Brien’s fortunes and says: “He’s had a lot of success at Werribee and Werribee have been successful on the back of him being such a great cricketer and a great person.’’
Gale, Melton’s president, says: “He’s had a fantastic career.’’
And it’s not over yet for Merv’s little mate.
Originally published as ‘Serious talent’: ‘Merv’s little mate’, Tim O’Brien, still going strong, 25 years after District debut
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