Star AFL ruck Brodie Grundy has opened up on his former club Melbourne and the moments that led to his departure.
Grundy has been a revelation for Sydney this year but it was only last season that the All-Australian found himself scrapping away in the Demons’ VFL team.
Now, Grundy is humming again and has helped propel the Swans to the top of ladder midway through 2024 season. He is also locked in as Sydney’s No.1 tap gun.
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In a revealing interview, he has looked back at his time at Melbourne and what went wrong.
Grundy had been courted by the Demons after signing a big-money deal for Collingwood and then falling victim to that club’s salary-cap dump.
The Magpies needed to offload players and Grundy, somewhat surprisingly, was suddenly dispensable.
Grundy called it a “crazy” time and said there were some questions about whether his pairing with Melbourne champion Max Gawn could work.
But he said there was also a feeling from Melbourne’s inner-sanctum that if it did work it “could be epic”.
Speaking to the ABC, Grundy said there was a “vision” that Melbourne “could win four flags” and the Gawn-Grundy duo could “be the best ruck partnership the game has ever seen”.
“We probably needed to unpack that in retrospect a little deeper,” he said, noting that it would only work if one of them could make an impact in the forward line.
“That’s the thing with strategy and vision, it can change and it’s not fixed in time, and it is strategy … at the end of the day you need to implement it.
“The implementation is where we came unstuck. I wasn’t thriving and Max wasn’t thriving.”
Grundy believes there were “best intentions” from both parties heading in to the arrangement, but said he “had to take the brunt of the outcome” after it failed.
That failed outcome meant Grundy was relegated to Melbourne’s second team … and ultimately traded.
“The culture that Melbourne has is really high-performing in terms of the standards they set, the work ethic, and I’m really grateful to have gotten a glimpse of what it’s like in that side,” Grundy said.
“When I went down into the twos, I did attempt to really give it a go and buy in, but ultimately it was going to prove pretty difficult for the next four years that I had left on my contract for both me and the club to be really happy with the deal.”
He called Melbourne’s response “mature”.
“(We were) able to sit down at the end and have transparent conversations, putting our cards on the table and saying, ‘Hey, is this still working?’ They obviously could have kept me, but I’m really grateful that they allowed me to seek that trade,” he said.
Grundy’s insight into Melbourne’s culture is interesting, given the club has been questioned after several scandals.
Melbourne coach Simon Goodwin had his name brought up in Federal Parliament with an allegation of cocaine use and a claim that AFL executives and others covered it up.
And the club was engulfed in a crisis last year when Melbourne forward Joel Smith was provisionally suspended after he was notified of a positive cocaine test following the Demons’ Round 20 win over Hawthorn on August 20.
More questions were asked about the club’s culture when star midfielder Clayton Oliver had a controversial end to 2023 and a troubled off-season.
At one point it seemed Oliver might leave the club, despite the fact he had signed a huge seven-year deal.
Melbourne have dropped their past two games in disappointing fashion and during the week club great David Schwarz lashed the club and Goodwin.
“No matter what spin Simon Goodwin puts on it, it lays with him. It lays with him and his selection committee that they have not been able to recruit, develop and identify a forward line that is going to be comparable, it doesn’t have to be the best in the business, but it has to be comparable to a side that is vying for a top eight, top-four position,” Schwarz said on SEN.
“It’s just not good enough.”
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