Jamie Murphy is out to make up for lost time after a stop-start first few months of his Easter Road career.
The 31-year-old made his comeback from injury against Livingston on Saturday and is determined to pick up where he left off, after showing supporters a glimpse of what he has to offer with two goals and two assists from 12 appearances so far for The Hibees.
Sitting on the sidelines never gets any easier, but the Scotland cap is better placed to cope with the odd setback after a career shaped by different experiences, good and bad.
He’s looking to be a big influence on a Hibernian team looking to compete for silverware and qualify for European football.
You broke into Motherwell’s first-team at an early age and have played a lot of football since. Looking back, are there any lessons learned that you’d want to pass on to your younger self?
Probably not to worry as much as I did. I was a big worrier when I was younger – about games, training, whether someone thought you were a good player or not and so on. Whereas, now, I feel like I have the confidence to just play and enjoy it. I feel like I’m a good player and that I can help the team.
What helped you get to that point?
Probably experience as much as anything else. I’ve made it to a certain level, and you don’t do that unless you’re a good player.
What form did that ‘worry’ take?
Nerves, really. I was quiet when I was younger, but it was fine. I’d train, play, and go home. But when you make it to the first team, suddenly there’s a lot more people watching you. I did wonder ‘what if I mess up here?’.
Did you feel that extra burden of expectation because you were a creative player who was expected to make things happen?
That actually helped me overcome the nerves and feel better. Someone giving me the ball meant that they had confidence in me. Then the first time you go by an opposition player with the ball you think ‘I can do this’ and then you play your normal game. So, although it probably made me nervous to begin with, being out of any comfort zone like that from an early age made me a better player.
Who were the guys who looked out for you at that stage?
I was lucky at Motherwell to have good senior players around me, which the younger players at Hibs are fortunate to have here. I played in front of Steven Hammell, I had Keith Lasley inside one in the centre of midfield and Stephen Craigan was the club captain. It made a difference playing alongside them. They set the standards and, as I said, when they trusted you enough to give you the ball then it meant something.
Creative players, by the nature of the role, are going to fail a lot of the time trying to make something happen. Did it take you time to get your head around that?
That’s one thing I was always pretty positive about and I try to pass that on to the boys here, particularly the ones like Jamie Gullan and Stevie Bradley who play in my position. You have to be prepared to keep asking for the ball and chances. That belief comes with experience.
They’re two very different characters – both blessed with a lot of ability and potential.
They both offer something different as players but they’re both very talented boys who work hard, in training and in games. Sometimes you see boys who are good but don’t back it up with hard work but that can’t be levelled at them. Jamie’s done well to force his way into the manager’s plans and get some goals. Stevie’s on the edge of making that breakthrough. As attacking players, if I can pass on anything that I think will help them then I will. I see a bit more of myself in Jamie, because he’s a bit quieter off the pitch. Stevie clearly has confidence and it’s great to see. He always wants the ball in training. He’s just learning about the rest of the game now.
You got a lot of first-team football under your belt before you tried your luck in England with Sheffield United and Brighton. What did playing down south do for you?
It changed my full outlook on football. I remember for the first eight months that I hated it and wanted to come home. I’m a home-boy and I like to be near to my family and that was the first time I’d really been away. It was completely different down there. I played alongside Dave Kitson and I remember thinking ‘I watched you on the TV’. I doubted myself a bit more at that point and wondered if I could reach the level they were at. I was starting all over again. My career in Scotland didn’t really mean anything at that point.
Was that in your head or the impression you got from other people?
Oh, other people. I didn’t get the impression they held the game up here in a high regard. The first eight months was tough, and I had to resist the urge to phone my Dad and tell him I wanted to come home. Gradually, though, things started to improve for me. Nigel Clough came in as manager and I went from being an ‘okay’ player to the one I thought I could be. Sheffield United was the one that really asked questions of me. It felt like it was a case of ‘you need to be the one who scores or assists’. I won their Player of the Year award and that got me a good move to Brighton.
How aware were you of the different expectations at each of your clubs?
It’s not so much within the dressing room. It comes from supporters, first and foremost. At Sheffield United we could get 20,000 to a League One game on a Tuesday night. You can see again now just how big a club they are. If you didn’t win you knew all about it. It was obviously like that at Rangers and I’m sure it’s the same here. I’m looking forward to supporters getting back to stadiums to experience that for myself.
In Glasgow you’d have been used to the attitude of a draw being deemed a disaster.
I think that’s a good attitude and it’s one I want to take here with me. You have to win. I think we’ve all seen some players come into Scottish football who expect to have an easier time of it. They think it’ll be a walk in the park. A lot of them go back down the road with their tail between their legs. Others have the right attitude, adapt and enjoy it.
What makes it a different kind of challenge in Scottish football?
It’s a bit faster up here. Down south, in League One everyone is physical. There’s quality but there’s maybe not as much of it around. Everyone is a good player in the Championship and they’re physical. In the Premier League, the physicality drops a little but they’re all top players. It’s a bit slower and you get more time on the ball. The Championship is more like we’re used to in Scotland. We’re also obviously consumed by football here and I enjoy that side of it. Football’s an everyday passion. Brighton was maybe the only club I’ve been at where you could walk down the street, and no-one would stop you.
How different is it for young players breaking through today?
We were talking about that recently. When I was coming through, I felt like a part-time footballer and a part-time cleaner. You cleaned everything – the boots, the dressing rooms, the stands after the game. I remember being in first-team squads, wearing my suit, and then having to wait on the opposition team leaving their dressing room so that I could get to work cleaning it. Washing the tunnel was one of my main jobs as well. There were times when I’d have to go up with a ladder and collect balls off the roof of the stand if they’d landed there during the game. I don’t remember hating it. It was just part of the apprenticeship. I look back on those days and it was brilliant. You’d be playing with your mates everyday and you were in from 9am to 5pm before getting the train home. There was definitely a value in it. It was an early lesson that football wasn’t going to be easy. You had to earn anything that came your way. The young boys still have to do some jobs around the place at Hibs and I think that’s a good thing. In terms of the social media attention, I think a lot of them have grown up with it so most of the dos and don’ts have become second nature.
You’ve been working on your coaching badges as well. Has that helped give you a different insight?
I’m in the middle of doing my B licence and I’m at the assessment stage. It’s something I’ve always been interested in. I’ve probably taken something from every manager. I think I’ve had 14 or 15 of them, including some big characters like Nigel Clough, Terry Butcher, Mark McGhee, Stuart McCall and Chris Hughton. There’s a good range in there, with different ways of playing. I think that’s reinforced that there’s not one ‘right’ way to go about it. At Sheffield United I was an out-and-out winger and told not to worry about defending. At Brighton it was a case of defending to earn the right to play. My improvement as a player come as a result of adapting to those different styles.
Is it too early to say whether you’d like to be a manager?
No, that’s something I definitely want to try. I like the problem-solving aspect of it, being able to watch a game and pick apart a team’s strengths and weaknesses. I probably watch games in a different way now and it started when I was injured. I wasn’t able to train for the best part of a year, so I found myself taking down notes in a journal whenever I’d watch a game – about how teams would play, how they won or lost the game. Now I’m fit, I’ve not written as much down but I still take in the games with an analytical eye. Coaching is probably similar to playing in some respects in that it’s good to pick up experience at a lower level and work your way up.
You were really making an impact before your last hamstring tweak. That must have made it doubly frustrating for you.
It was frustrating as I felt like I was just getting going. There’s a lot more to come from me. I’d love to say that I was able to cope better with injuries now than when I was younger, but the opposite is probably true. When you’re 18 you can run all day and probably don’t think as much about the extra little things you can do around it to take care of your body. Now I’m more professional in terms of the additional work, so it’s tougher to take when you still pick up the odd knock but it’s part of the game. Prehab training is a big thing for me. I’ll work to activate certain muscle groups for maybe an hour beforehand now. From 18 to 25 I’d have thought that was unthinkable but I do feel and see the benefit of it. It’s a lot more individualised now so you can work on your specific weaknesses.
As we touched on, you’ve played a lot of football throughout your career – from an early age. You’ve only really had one significant injury. So how hard is it for a player whenever they hear the ‘injury-prone’ tag thrown around?
There’s little more frustrating for a player. I read something about myself recently – which I don’t often do – and it started off by saying that I’d had an injury-hit career. My first injury came when I was 28. I played for 11 or 12 years without an injury. I had a few niggles on the back of the one real injury that I had but that’s normal. The tag can be harder to shake off than the injuries. When you get a serious injury there’s a knock-on impact to your whole body. I have far more muscle now than I ever did prior to the knee injury, which makes you more susceptible to muscle injuries. So that’s where the prehab and recovery stuff becomes more important but I certainly don’t consider myself to be ‘injury-hit’.
There’s a lot still to achieve this season. What are you looking forward to?
I came here to challenge for honours and we’re in the semi-final of the Betfred Cup, so we want to see how far we can take that. I was speaking to my Dad the other day about this after scoring in the game against Celtic, which was a big game for us. You never know how many more goals you’re going to score or how many big games you’ll be lucky enough to be involved in so you can’t ever take it for granted. Everyone here wants a trophy and European football so that’s the objective.
