The 24-year-old has represented her country and is a national development player but her journey to the top didn’t start until she was 16.

Opportunities never came along too often when she was growing up in Sydney’s west but she was amazed by the chance juniors from the western region when she visited Dubbo on Thursday.

Close to 150 juniors from the region attended a Waratah Camp at Victoria Park and Murphy’s attendance delighted those who dream of following in her footsteps.

“I didn’t really get to play until I was 16 or 17 because there wasn’t many pathways where I lived and I grew up doing athletics so developing kids of a younger age is really what I’m about,” she said.

“This will help our future in rugby so to give them that experience and knowledge at a younger age, then they can be well-skilled by the time they get to the rep sides.”

Murphy has recently taken on an ambassador role with Rugby Australia and has spent plenty of time travelling to various communities and helping implement skills programs.

At Dubbo on Thursday there was a whole host of local juniors in attendance while others came from Forbes, Orange, Mudgee and even as far as Bourke.

Everything from basics of passing through to tackling, scrum, and maul work was taught by Murphy and NSW development officers and coaches, led by Dubbo pair Angus McDonald and Jarrod Simpson.

The camp came at the perfect time for the youngsters, with local competitions now starting to take off.

Something which made Murphy particularly proud was the fact there was a handful of young female players among the boys.

“That’s awesome and it’s definitely good to see girls playing,” she said.

“Hopefully this gives them some confidence and knowledge that we can play rugby as well.”

Murphy knows as well as anyone how exciting it is to be a female player at the moment with a Commonwealth Games silver medal last week following on from the gold the Australian women’s side won at the Olympics.

On the national scene, the final of the hugely successful maiden Buildcorp Super W competition is on this weekend.

“It’s been an exciting month and there’s been some big games happening and hopefully now we’ve got the juniors coming through and others who want to wear that green and gold jersey,” Murphy said.

“I remember when I first came into the Australian squad there was not many kids who knew what rugby was but once our team won the gold medal at the Olympics in Rio and I started going to schools after that kids were more aware of rugby sevens and a lot more girls who wanted to play and that’s what it is about.”

The Australian sevens side plays in Japan this weekend but the major focus after that is the Rugby World Cup, which is in San Francisco in October.

“So up until that we’ll be training hard and hopefully I get in that team,” Murphy said.