BEHIND THE SCENES: We spent a day at the Murray Magpies Football & Netball Club

More than a thousand days have passed since the club last won a game of senior football, picking up three Hume league wooden spoons either side of a year wiped out by coronavirus.

But, lies, damned lies and statistics, what is really going at Urana Road Oval?

First impressions are always telling and three beaming smiles on the gate suggest there might not be as much doom and gloom in the air as some would have you believe.

"It's a fantastic place," Richard Phillips said. "I'm not on the committee but I'm sort of extra to everything. I've been doing the gate and the raffle for a long time.

"It's another group of people that you're mixing with. Now that I'm retired, I wouldn't otherwise mix with a lot of these people but I've got my footy friends here.

"Most people who come to the gate know me and it's nice to have a little bit of a chat as they arrive.

"Everyone told us 'you'll last a year or so' but we've proved them wrong. This really is a worthwhile club."

Taking the money next to us is Les Janetzki.

"I was at Thurgoona for so long," he said. "The Magpies were in the Coreen league and Ted Miller wanted me to come out here for years but I didn't want to do all that driving.

"As soon as they joined the Hume league, Ted was onto me again and I was here.

"Of course it's not a good feeling losing games but we're trying to improve next year.

"We've got plans in place to hopefully pick up a lot of junior footballers and start from scratch."

Rod Edwards, father of Magpies captain Hayden, is the third wise man.

"It's an absolute battle for them," he said. "I honestly don't know how they keep going.

"It comes down to sticking together in good times and bad and they're a great bunch of young blokes.

"I was on the committee a few years ago. I was very keen, trying to make a difference but, over the years, when you struggle to get success, you lose a bit of momentum and Covid certainly made a big difference last year.

"I went into my shell, felt a bit antisocial and didn't want to venture out.

"When this season started, I rocked up to support my son and I saw these gentlemen on the gate. They're getting older and immediately I felt guilty, that I had to step up and do my bit."

Edwards is the club's designated timekeeper at away games.

"I travel to all the small towns and support the Magpies," he said.

"We're few and far between, us volunteers, so you've got to do your bit.

"I used to be very competitive and keen to see success but that's probably a reason I've backed right off.

"We definitely need a new direction. We need to regroup with new ideas and new blood."

Right, time to meet the men at the top. Miller, the man Janetzki mentioned earlier, founded the Magpies in 1999 and he remains the club president today.

"You do sometimes think you're banging your head against a brick wall," Miller said when asked about the lean years.

"We lost a few players after Corey Lambert left, which we knew we would, and things move on.

"We appointed Brett Argus with a three-year plan to get us more competitive, which I believe we were this year other than the scores against Osborne and Holbrook.

"You look at the scores against the bottom five or six teams and we've been fairly competitive.

"It does test you but I like putting on sport for eight netball teams, three or four football teams and having a good environment around the place.

"At the end of the day, you think 'that wasn't too bad after all.'"

The type of environment Miller refers to is central to Argus' coaching philosophy.

Having played for the Magpies in 2004, he accepted Miller's invitation to leave North Albury and take over from Lambert.

"I knew it was a big job and I had a very clear way I wanted to do it," Argus said.

"It involved creating the right sort of atmosphere and culture around the club and then building on the field after that.

"I borrowed something from Geelong: character first, talent second.

"It doesn't matter how good you are, if you don't fit into what we want to be, we don't need you and we don't want you. Unfortunately, we had to let people know they weren't welcome here.

"There was an exodus of good players, some by our choice and others we'd like to have kept.

"At the start of this year, we had 15 new guys in the team and two were over 25.

"There's always going to be opportunities to win games, with the talent we have, and there's going to be the odd flogging here and there.

"Yes, we're sitting on the bottom of the ladder and we haven't won any games but we could easily have won five or six."

External criticism has inevitably come the Magpies' way.

"Personally, I don't give a shit," Argus retorted.

"I know what we're like here and everyone who comes here goes 'this is nothing like what I've heard.'

"There's a bad reputation and a link to East Lavington, supposedly, but there is no link. People still want to fix that on us but we use the same ground, that's it.

"We worry about we do and we do that really well.

"Go back even two years ago and Hayden Edwards, our captain, said he hadn't had a more enjoyable year of football ever - and we lost every game by 100 points!

"If your captain and your best player is the first person to sign up every year, you're doing something right."

Injuries have plagued the Magpies this season and Edwards will sit out today's game against Holbrook.

"We're getting a lot of young, new talent to the club and building on the core group we want to stick around," he said.

"We could do with some key players and then everything falls into place around those players.

"But rather than paying big dollars for success, like other clubs do, we prefer to build the hard way and earn that success."

Shane 'Beetle' Butler spreads his time between watching his daughter in the under-11s, playing reserve football and cooking chips.

"You've got to keep your head up and keep going," he smiled. "Once you lose faith, that's it.

"There's only one way to go and that's up. We can't go any further down.

"There will come a time when we win a couple of games and everyone will be excited.

"The first win will be huge. I don't think I've won a game here in a good three years but I still show up every week and have fun.

Vice-president Andrew Hume takes an equally holistic view.

"I have people say to me, from different clubs, 'it must be hard for you to come each week, to be beaten all the time' but what I like about this club is the fantastic people, a great atmosphere and it's not always about winning," he said

"It's about improvement and Argus has been an inspiration to this club.

"Next year, people will be surprised by where we are.

"There wouldn't be a club without Ted, his wife and his kids," Hume added. "They've all been here, dedicated for 20 years."

It's certainly a family affair.

"We're virtually chasing Ted," wife Liz, the canteen manager, said.

"It's hard to watch him go through that criticism but he's always pretty positive."

"Dad takes it in his stride," daughter and former netballer Emma Quinlivan said.

"He cops a bit of flak from outside but everyone within the club is quite positive.

"I've followed Dad, whatever club he's been involved with. I've been at Magpies for 23 years and the people you meet, you become friends for life.

"We won the premiership in our first year as a club. I was 20. We weren't expected to so it was huge, very exciting. It's hard to describe.

"It's great watching our kids now. I've got two boys and my sister's got a girl, so even though they're too young to play football and netball yet, they love it.

"It's not the Magpies canteen here, it's Nanny's Canteen."

Quinlivan has been succeeded as club secretary this year by Jessica Black.

"My sister brought me here," Black said. "We moved from West Wyalong in 2019 and I didn't know any of the clubs around here.

"It was daunting at first but but from day one, at trials, everyone welcomed me. It's such a family-orientated club and that's what keeps me coming back.

"I like giving back to the club, they gave me a position here so I thought why not?"

For netball co-ordinator and A-grade coach Kiera Nicholson, time management and the club's family ethos have both been tested in 2021.

"I've got two kids, aged one and three, and I work shifts as a nurse," she said. "It's pretty full-on. There have been weeks I've worked a night shift on Friday and come to play on Saturday so I trust the other girls who are helping me.

"It's a good, hard competition but having a young family, I bring my girls to training and I tell the others to bring their kids if they need to. They get to run around, everyone knows who they are and I like that family atmosphere we've got going.

"We've been one of the clubs most affected by the cross-border shutdown. We lose half our senior squad when Victorian players can't play and it makes things really hard.

"In A-grade, it takes out our main goal-shooter and although our under-17s have stepped up beautifully, it's a big jump from playing against girls your own age to playing against women."

Four of the club's netball teams will play finals but for the footballers, season 2021 ends here as news of the NSW lockdown hits.

"It's been challenging," Miller admitted. "You don't know whether you're playing from one week to the next.

"Last year, we all had a rest, which I thought was alright. It might have been telling me something.

"I don't think I'll be doing this for years to come but I'd never walk away.

"I'll be here in some capacity to help out, as a volunteer, because I've put too much into it just to walk away.

"Next year, hopefully we can get a few wins under the belt and I'd like to see that after the two years we've had.

"In 2018, I thought I'd had enough but when Brett came on board, I got rejuvenated again."

BEHIND THE SCENES - IN CASE YOU MISSED THEM:

"The belief is there already," Argus enthused.

"When we do get our first win, there will be 20 players who probably don't know the team song so we might have to print some sheets, but it'll be amazing.

"It'll be a lot of reward for all the work that's happened, not just this year but over the last three years, for everyone who does all the work here to get a game going, all the netball girls, who come over to watch us and cheer us on and it all helps.

"We are one club."

The unity Argus describes speaks volumes.

If the Murray Magpies really were doomed, the cracks would have started to show a long time ago.

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