Nathan Lovett-Murray

Nathan Lovett-Murray (born 18 November 1982) is a former Australian rules footballer with the Essendon Football Club.

Nathan has Indigenous Australian heritage and his tribal ancestry can be traced to the Wamba-Wamba and Gunditjmara.

He began his football in Victoria playing country football with Heywood and the North Ballarat Rebels.

Lovett-Murray was initially rookie listed by Collingwood, playing for the Williamstown Seagulls in the Victorian Football League.

After switching to the Bendigo Bombers, he was rookie listed by Essendon in the 2003 Rookie Draft.

Lovett-Murray was promoted to the senior list early in the 2004 season and played 20 games. He spent the 2005 season on the rookie list again, he was promoted again that season and stayed on the senior list since then.

Lovett-Murray, along with 33 other Essendon players, was found guilty of using a banned performance enhancing substance, thymosin beta-4, as part of Essendon's sports supplements program during the 2012 season. He and his team-mates were initially found not guilty in March 2015 by the AFL Anti-Doping Tribunal, but a guilty verdict was returned in January 2016 after an appeal by the World Anti-Doping Agency. He was suspended for two years which, with backdating, ended in December 2016; as a result, he served approximately fifteen months of his suspension and missed the entire 2016 season, when he had intended to play and coach for Rumbalara Football Club.

In August 2009, it was reported that Lovett-Murray's home had been raided by police on 3 August. He was charged with possession of a drug of dependency, after the search found a single tablet of ecstasy at his home. However, on 11 December it was reported that the drug charge against him had been dismissed.