Fremantle Dockers draftees Murphy Reid, Charlie Nicholls, Jaren Carr and Aiden Riddle start life in the AFL

Fremantle’s interstate draftees have been handed cricketing nicknames within days of arriving in Western Australia, with Murphy Reid and Charlie Nicholls dubbed Bruce and Gray upon arrival at the club.

The Dockers recruited Reid from Victoria with their first pick in the national draft but his name presented challenges for the squad given Ollie Murphy is already known as “Murph” and Liam Reidy gets called “Reidy.”

Fremantle vice-captain Andrew Brayshaw quickly seized upon his family’s cricketing background and honed in on former left arm fast bowler Bruce Reid for inspiration.

The West Aussie played the last of his 27 Tests about 14 years before Reid was born, but the midfielder now understands his place in cricket history.

“I’ve heard a bit about him now,” Reid said.

“Andy was pretty quick to find that name for me. I think it’s going to stick. Everyone is calling me Bruce. I like it. It rolls off the tongue well.”

Nicholls flew in from South Australia and his teammates used the Gray Nicholls cricket bat as inspiration

Rookie Aiden Riddle has started being called Tom after the Harry Potter character Tom Riddle (the given name of villain Voldemort), while Jaren Carr is simply known as Carry.

Reid and Nicholls are living with Brayshaw and Serong respectively and spent the weekend being shown around WA by them.

Reid said Brayshaw was already treating him like a brother and is teaching him what’s required to be an AFL player. He said Brayshaw’s popularity had already been obvious.

“He’s a pretty familiar face around the Freo area. Every two seconds he’s getting stopped and I’m just standing awkwardly on the side. I even took a photo for him yesterday,” he laughed.

“We went out to an Italian restaurant on Saturday night and we were sort of asking for it - we went down to Yo-Chi after on the main street of Freo. Me, Charlie, Caleb and Andy. We got five photos in the space of five minutes.

“It’s pretty cool getting recognised straight away. There were a few shocked faces obviously because we were with Caleb and Andy. It’s pretty cool how that it is sinking now that I’m an AFL footballer.”