Nathalia and Murray Football League star Evans is helping lead Purples back to the top

Evans’ senior football journey began with Nathalia’s reign of terror over the Murray Football League.

Winning five consecutive flags from 2015-19, the Purples etched themselves into country football folklore as young buck, at the time, Evans was born into senior football supremacy.

“The first (flag) to be honest I can’t really remember,” Evans said.

“Being young you are just sort of playing and it's a bit of a blur.

“I did enjoy the last one probably because I was getting a bit older and I was getting more of a kick and probably had more involvement in the year (winning player of the finals series).”

Evans graduated from junior football at the end of 2013 and found consistency in the senior line-up 18 months later during Nathalia’s first premiership season.

Playing all but one game, Evans celebrated as he and his teammates defeated Moama in a three-point grand final thriller.

The 2016 grand final followed a similar path, as a growing in confidence Evans booted two goals in Nathalia’s come-from-behind three-point victory over Finley.

Having grown up at Nathalia, idolising and learning from the champions of the proud rural club, Evans quickly found himself forever intertwined in the Purples’ history as a five-time premiership player.

While Nathalia hasn’t reached those same heights since the pandemic interrupted its run at a sixth straight flag, Evans’ impact in attack has only grown.

In 2023, the gun goal-kicker booted a career-high 94 goals, while he is currently leading the league for goals in 2025 with 58 from 11 games.

And now, 10 years on from the club’s 2015 success, Evans finds himself in the position of the wise, old head that Nathalia’s youth comes running to ask, Space Jam-style, for “Liam’s secret stuff” on how to become a star of the competition, as he did with his predecessors a decade ago.

Evans said his positional switch from student to master came at him quickly.

“I still feel young, but then I look out at training and feel old,” he said.

“I just try to give a bit of knowledge, if they want to listen and pass it on, just with how they are setting up.

“You go from the young one to the old one quick.”

Evans has donned the purple and gold guernsey 203 times for a total of 533 goals, while he recently ticked over the 750 career goal mark.

His 2023 season was the closest he has come to reaching the 100-goal milestone in a single season.

Although Evans acknowledges that having a milestone like that on his résumé would be great for a yarn at the pub, given Nathalia has finished seventh, fourth and eighth in the past three seasons and hasn’t won a final since its last flag, the star forward’s attention is firmly focused on team success.

One personal moment of glory that Evans can share over a jar of amber was when he put his head in the feed bag against a struggling Rumbalara in 2023.

“I think we got (Rumba) at home, nice big oval and I got myself nice and deep and sort of pushed a few people out of the way,” he said.

“A few of the boys started looking for me late, especially when I had a few on the board.

“I kicked (17 goals) and about seven or eight points, so if I could have kicked straight (would have reached 20).”

Living in town with his partner Olivia McDonald and their 15-month-old daughter Heidi, Evans works at a Nathalia secondary school.

The children he once taught — and continues to teach — are now his teammates at Nathalia.

Alongside experienced players such as Ryan Butler and Mal Barnes, Evans said the veterans mixed with the new wave of talent could take Nathalia back to the top.

“We had a lot of locals and I think a lot of buy-in (during the five-peat), you go to training and all the senior boys would be there, pre-seasons were hard and throughout the year the experience and fitness got us over the line in finals,” he said.

“If you look through our list now, there are a lot of young kids from 17-20.

“We have a good young core, depends what they want to do, they are all off to uni now, but they are all mates and are coming back.”

Evans’ knack for premiership success flows into his summer sport cricket, winning four A-grade premierships with Nathalia in Murray Valley Cricket Association, before securing his fifth A-grade flag with Waaia last season.

Taking his tally of top-flight flags across football and cricket to a whopping 10.

As with his football, Evans is freewheeling, attacking and talented on the cricket pitch as a spinning all-rounder.

While Evans had a less-than-dominant season batting, collecting enough ducks to run a farm, his impact with the ball was evident as he claimed 30 scalps.

Waaia made it through to the two-day grand final and played out a thriller with Nagambie as the two clubs hunted their first Haisman Shield title.

Evans played a crucial role in the nail-biting win with a stoic 40 runs and three wickets for the match.

“When we played previously, we played through (the season) undefeated and when we got to finals we went out in straight sets; this (summer) was the complete opposite where we had a terrible season and then got to finals and won a few games and won it all,” he said.

“(The grand final) was one of those games that everyone was watching; it dragged on.

“When we were last batting, that last wicket, I kept looking at my watch and it was telling me I was high stress sitting at 95-100 (bpm) for the majority of that hour.

“(The celebrations) were pretty good, a few big days out at Waaia.

“A few of the boys you couldn’t stop them, especially after a couple days, but I had to get back to work.”