The man who annoyed the Cockroaches
Barry Muir was the Australia scrum-half from 1959 to 1964. He toured the UK on three occasions – in 1959 and 1963 to contest the Ashes and in 1960 for the World Cup.
He played for most of his career with Wests in Brisbane. He represented Queensland both as a player and a coach. In his role as the latter, he did much to fire inter-state hostilities, coining the nickname “The Cockroaches” for the New South Wales team.
If you could relive one day from your career, which would it be?
Winning the Ashes in England in 1963. I had a big rivalry with Alex Murphy, although we’ve always been very good friends. He had been magnificent in 1958 and 1962 over here. When we lost in 1962, he made an insulting comment about our forwards to me. A year later, when we won the Ashes, I repeated the comment to him word for word after our forwards had got the better of Britain’s. He smiled and said I had a good memory. Alex was a smartarse, but I loved the bloke. Australia won the Ashes in England in 1912, but they had New Zealanders in the side, so we were the first Kangaroos to win the Ashes in England, and it was a huge deal.
Tell us more about Alex and the other English halfbacks you faced.
Alex was a wonderful player, but I took a lot of pleasure in the fact he was dropped from the Great Britain team after the first Tests in both 1959 and 1963. I used to work in a sports’ shop and when I went over for the 1960 World Cup, I took over a jersey with my name on it to be signed. When I got it home, Alex had scribbled my name out and written his own! Jeff Stevenson came into the side in 1959, but he played mainly at dummy-half and his forwards protected him, so I didn’t get too close to him. I faced Tommy Smales in 1963, and he was an excellent player.
Tell us about your early Rugby League experiences.
I started at Coolangatta Secondary School and played for Queensland Schools in 1951. Then I went over the border to play for Tweed Head Seagulls and got into first grade. I went back to Queensland to play for Valleys and then had eleven seasons with Wests in Brisbane.
As a Wests player, you were called up to Queensland and Australia in 1959. What were your experiences of the Interstate series with New South Wales?
I was very happy with it at first because we beat them three times out of four in 1959. There were four games a year, unlike State of Origin. There was a Kangaroo tour that year, and out of the 26 places, only seven of us Queenslanders got in. There were seven from one team in Sydney, and that was St George of course. Don’t get me wrong, they were magnificent, but we were an entire state! We won or drew the next couple of series, but New South Wales began to dominate from 1962 and I didn’t get a single win after that.
Was the Brisbane League as good as the Sydney competition when you played?
Oh yes, most certainly. The average team had several internationals in the side. When the Broncos started up [in 1988], that was the end of it being a competition equal to Sydney’s.
You were coached by Clive Churchill when you made your Queensland debut in 1959. What was he like?
He made all the difference. He was a wonderful coach and a lovable bloke. We looked up to him and we’d run through a brick wall for him. He had a wonderful personality; he could fit in with anybody – the good or the bad. He could identify problems and sort them out. He got players to play for him.
What do you remember of your Test debut against New Zealand in 1959?
The lead-up was tough. I’d played well in the interstate, but, at that time, New South Wales had three selectors and Queensland only had two, so we had to be really good to get into the Australia team. I remember Clive talking to me when I was putting my boots on and that was great. It was a hard game and we won, but only just. It was 9-8. Their hooker, John Butterfield, gave me a nice kick in the shins. A big Maori came at me from 25 yards, and they were shouting, “Go at Muir!” but I put him on his arse. I was a cocky halfback after that!
You toured the UK three times, firstly in 1959. What are your recollections of that first tour?
The minus-five-star hotels! They were awful. They just didn’t look after you. The beds weren’t made. We had to do them ourselves. We were on the plane for about 36 hours. It was a long trip, but I loved playing in England. The grounds were terrific, and I really liked the English style. We should have won the Ashes in 1959. I scored what should have been the series-winning try in the second Test, but the referee pulled it back for a supposed forward pass between Reg Gasnier and Harry Wells from four passes back. Clive wasn’t happy. “We won’t win the third test, for sure,” he told us. He knew the referee would make sure of it, and, sure enough, we lost 18-12. The 1959 Kangaroos have had a reunion every year for 60 years now. We’re the only side that does that. We last met a couple of years ago but haven’t been able to since Covid.
You were back a year later for the World Cup in 1960.
We had a bloody good hotel this time, in Leeds. We won our first two games, as did Great Britain, so when we played them at Odsal, it was basically the final. I remember having to walk about 100 yards onto the pitch. It was a rough game, but we could handle ourselves, and we really should have won.
Your final tour of the UK was in 1963 when you did go home with the Ashes.
We had a great team in 1963. We beat New Zealand, South Africa, Great Britain and France. We won the first two Ashes Tests so much easier than anyone could have expected, but then we relaxed a bit in the third Test which was a dead rubber. Reg Gasnier was magnificent in that series. When he first started, he had Harry Wells at inside centre, and Harry taught Reg a lot. By 1963, Graeme Langlands had come in. We had a brilliant set of backs, which also included Ken Thornett, Ken Irvine and Peter Dimond. Even so, we played it in the forwards, and I remember saying to Ian Walsh, our captain, that we should put some biff on. Great Britain weren’t expecting that, and when we moved the ball, our backs had too much speed.
Were you surprised how uncompetitive Great Britain were in 1963, given they’d dominated the previous five years?
Yes, because in 1958 and 1962 they had been so good. They had so many star players and a big pack. But you only have to have two or three out and things can go wrong. We thought Great Britain were weaker in the forwards in 1963, and we exploited it. One surprise in 1963 was playing at Wembley and the poor crowd. The walk from the tunnel is really long, but I could hear Murphy complaining to Eric Ashton that the game should have been in the north, and not at Wembley. I thought to myself, “These blokes aren’t geed up.” I thought we could get on top of them early, and we would win. That’s what happened. The crowd was 13,946 in a stadium that held 100,000. Alex was right – they got 30,000 at Swinton for the second game.
Away from the Tests, what memories do you have of your three UK trips?
We had to play two games a week – Wednesdays and Saturdays. Some of the tour games were as tough as the Test matches. They were all out to beat us. I remember one day on the bus going to a game, and we could see about 100 miners with their helmets on who all got in for free. Swinton was my favourite ground.
You coached Queensland from 1974 to 1978. You nicknamed New South Wales the Cockroaches, precipitating much of the rivalry that spilled over into Origin in 1980. What happened?
I called them cockroaches because that’s what I thought they were! Changa Langlands was always calling us names, so I decided to make one up, and the press heard me using it when I was coaching. One of the pressmen said, “Who are the cockroaches, Barry?” And I said the Blues. The next day it was in the papers and that’s where it all started. That started a rivalry that continued into State of Origin.
One time, a cockroach ran out at Lang Park, and a New South Welshman shouted he’d love to meet the person who coined that phrase. My wife stood up and said, “Here he is! Come and meet him. It’s my husband.”
But we weren’t doing well then, certainly unlike the days when Mal Meninga won nine series in a row. It wasn’t like that in the 1970s! I had mixed feelings when State of Origin came along because the country players weren’t going to get picked. By the end, it worked so well, that no one could complain.
Did you coach against many Queenslanders in the NSW team?
You only had to have a few, and it made a difference. When someone like Arthur Beetson played for NSW instead of us, it tipped the scales. When I coached Queensland, we got beaten by one point in my last game. We were never beaten by a big margin, but you can’t keep the pressure up all the time when NSW had so many Australia internationals. That’s where State of Origin was always going to work. In that final game, we were in front with five minutes to go. They needed a converted try to win. We got a free kick at the scrum. Tommy Raudonikis came around and started kicking the shit out of the Queensland halfback. Then the ref changed his decision. Their scrum. They won the scrum and scored the points they needed with one minutes to go.
I haven’t been well recently and the Queensland team I coached have all stood by me, calling me and making sure I am okay. I’m lucky to have coached them.
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