From top cop to head coach: How Karyn Murphy changed women’s rugby league

Karyn Murphy has always been a team player. She has always had to be.

After 26 years in the police force, followed by seven with the NRL’s integrity unit, the 53-year-old Gold Coast Titans coach knows the value of being able to trust those around you.

“I see so many similarities between policing and sporting in general. In police, you’ve got to have each other’s back every single day and you’ve got to trust each other, and importantly everyone’s different,” she said.

“They’ve got all different skill sets and if you can get people confident, and get the best out of them individually you’ll have a really strong team.”

That’s a big part of the reason she has been such a success on the Gold Coast. After picking up the wooden spoon in 2022, Murphy transformed the team to lead them to the NRLW grand final this year for the first time in the club’s history. It’s also the first time a female-coached side has reached the decider.

Jillaroo No.41, Murphy played 15 seasons for Australia and captained them for 14 having made her debut in 1998 against Fiji. By the time she retired in 2013, after lifting the World Cup with the Jillaroos, she had played 27 Test matches. But it takes time for good players to become good coaches, and the past two years have been a massive learning curve.

Karyn Murphy and Karina Brown after the Titans’ semi-final win over the Roosters.Credit: NRL Photos

“I’m still very new to it,” Murphy said. “I’ve got a lot of good people around me that support me, and some experienced NRL coaches that also are there to provide guidance to me, and I’m really thankful for all of those people. I’ve got a lot of things to learn, but I’m happy with how we’re progressing.“

One of those people is incoming Titans NRL coach Des Hasler.

“She’s done a tremendous job,” Hasler says. “She handles the responsibility really well. She has accountability, too because she was a real pioneer. She did a lot [for women’s rugby league] in its infancy. She’s a bit of a legend. Women’s rugby league has just become such a wonderful entity in its own right. So, I think that’s really important for her, and she gets to mentor young girls, young women that are aspirational and chasing dreams.”

Murphy is never one to blow her own horn. Even after picking up the Dally M coach of the year award this week, she attributed the award to her team. One thing she does acknowledge is how far the game has come since she retired from playing.

“All the girls that played in my time would say the same thing – that we would always take some steps forward, and we’d think things were going to happen, and then we’d get told no,” she said. “It was only in 2013 that we were formally supported, where we could take our full-strength side to a World Cup, rather than self-funding and players not being able to afford to go.

“That was 10 years ago, and for women to have the opportunity to play for NRL clubs, that was spoken about a long time ago, but was never a reality. And so, for that to happen so quickly and expansion now to 10 teams, it’s certainly well deserved, but I didn’t know if it would ever happen.”

To her players, she’s as much as a trailblazer as she is a leader. Olympic silver medallist Niall Williams-Guthrie said Murphy was the reason she signed with the Titans. “She’s a great person as well as coach. She actually cares about you as a person,” Williams-Guthrie said. “She’s that coach that makes you want to play for her, you want to do the best you can out there for her because of what she gives to the team.”

Now, there are calls for Murphy to be recognised for her impact on the game, with Titans chief executive Steve Mitchell pushing for her to become an immortal.

“We currently have 13 Immortals, who have all made extraordinary contributions to the game, but they are all men,” Mitchell said. “It is time we had a female immortal and Karyn is added to this group. There is arguably no person who has been more influential to the female game of rugby league than Karyn.”

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