Toby Greene suspension: GWS coach Leon Cameron reveals superstar’s apology to teammates
Giants coach Leon Cameron has revealed Toby Greene made an emotional apology to teammates after his sanction as further reports of online abuse emerged.
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Banned superstar Toby Greene fronted his teammates mid-week to apologise for his umpire-contact suspension that cost the Giants their best player.
Coach Leon Cameron revealed Greene’s “emotional” speech after Greater Western Sydney’s six-goal semi-final defeat to Geelong on Friday night.
His decision to front his teammates came as reports of more vile online abuse directed at the Giant emerged on Saturday night.
The AFL’s Integrity Unit was made aware of deeply offensive Instagram posts directed towards Greene, via his partner’s account, since the elimination final.
The AFL Tribunal gave Greene a three-match sanction on Tuesday for making intentional contact on umpire Matt Stevic at three-quarter time of last week’s win over the Swans.
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That ban could yet be longer, given the AFL has officially lodged an appeal, which will be held after the grand final, at the Giants’ request.
But Cameron refused to blame Greene’s absence for GWS’s rollercoaster season ending, saying any suggestion it was his fault was “a bit harsh”.
“We had a number of players out — it’s not just one player who costs a team,” he said.
“In terms of his apology, he was clearly remorseful and it was an emotional 10 or 15 minutes in front of our entire group throughout the week.
“We’re not a club that’s going to shy away from things. We need to work out the rights and wrongs, and he got it wrong last weekend and he puts his hand up.
“But equally, as I said throughout the week, you don’t give up on these players, because they’re like your children…
“He’s been a wonderful player for us, and I’m really confident he’ll work through some of those challenges over the pre-season.”
The loss to the Cats is almost certainly ruckman Shane Mumford’s last AFL game.
The 35-year-old overcame back and knee issues to play 14 games this season – about three times as many as expected – after major injuries to Braydon Preuss and Matt Flynn.
Cameron said it was “more unlikely than likely” that the “banged up” Mumford would play on.
“He’s retired a couple of times, ‘Mummy’. It was an emotional time after the game and you could clearly see he was shattered,” Cameron said.
“We managed him really well, we got a really good performance out of him and his second half was unbelievably good on courage, and our players actually see that and love having him out there.”
With star midfielder Jacob Hopper set to re-sign for two years in the coming weeks, the Giants look primed to avoid losing any key players for the first off-season in some time.
“I’m really confident Jacob will put pen to paper — he probably just wanted to get the season over and done with,” Cameron said.
“He’s a wonderful player for us, he’s out of our Academy, he’s been there since he arrived at the end of 2015, he’s settled in Sydney ... and all the indicators are he’ll be at our footy club.
“But no doubt over the upcoming period it would be good (for it) to be a quiet one for us.”
GWS will now return to Covid-stricken Sydney, via Melbourne, to reunite with family, after 10 weeks on the road.
Cameron Q&A: What Toby must learn from ‘awkward’ situation
Giants coach Leon Cameron works out of a Sydney market that, at first inspection, should provide an escape from the Melbourne AFL bubble.
Instead, the former Bulldog and Tiger is one of the game’s most scrutinised coaches, because of his perceived advantages.
Amid one of the most challenging years of his football life, Cameron’s led his team to the second week of the finals.
He speaks to Marc McGowan about Friday night’s semi-final, constantly being under the microscope, his family, Stephen Coniglio, Toby Greene and more.
Marc McGowan: You had a narrow finals win over the Swans and now you play a Geelong team that’s copped non-stop criticism for the past week. How are you feeling about this one?
Leon Cameron: It’s a huge challenge for our young group against a very mature finals team. The side that loses that first week almost always bounces back the second week, because of the barrage of abuse they cop, after they might have had a poor first final. The stakes rise again and we need to rise to the occasion, but every time we’ve had to raise the bar in the last six weeks, we have. It’s a wonderful opportunity to play in front of what looks like 40,000 people at Optus Stadium.
MM: The Giants have won at least one final in five of the past six years. Are you pretty proud of that?
LC: I’m really proud we’ve got courageous, great-character players who are built for finals footy. We’re sort of bash and crash and contested, and that stacks up in finals footy. But there’s an empty feeling still and we know what that is. It’s great to win finals and we’ve been to a grand final, but your ultimate aim is to win a flag. You don’t want to be the bridesmaid all the time or the side that finishes fourth, fifth or sixth.
MM: There were people calling for you to be sacked when the Giants were 0-3. Now, after overcoming mass injuries and being on the road for 10 weeks to make the finals, some of those same people are saying you might be the coach of the year.
LC: You understand when you jump into being a senior coach that scrutiny is going to come. (Former GWS football boss) ‘Gubby’ Allan always said to me, ‘It’s never that good and it’s never that bad’. I find it quite funny. Sometimes in coaching when you win, they say, ‘Great coaching’ but you didn’t do anything different from last week, when you lost by two goals. We just might have kicked straight, finished our work or something might have happened. You can’t let it eat you up too much. People will write stories regardless. To be honest, I read only some of them.
MM: It’s surely not that easy, though, is it, with people constantly judging you and even calling for you to be sacked?
LC: I’ve got a choice to put my energy into my family and my footy club, or some person who might be having a crack at me every week. This article, this time next year; who knows what they’ll be saying? There is only one coach who wins the premiership, and there will be other coaches judged either fairly or harshly. When you sign up for it, you’ve got to be prepared for it and ignore as much of the outside noise as you can. Ultimately, I don’t walk out of a game, knowing we’ve won a really good match, and think, ‘Come on, bring all the goodness to me, because you’ve been giving it to me the last few weeks’.
MM: Speaking of family, you and your wife, Carolyn, have three children – Amelia, Harry and Jack. How important is it to you to be a good father?
LC: Oh, it’s huge. I was extremely lucky to have a very good mother who brought up four kids. She did a wonderful job. We had some challenges as a young fella, so that experience strengthened my desire to be a very good dad. Coaching is a high-pressure environment and it’s very easy for me to get home at night and go straight to my computer and not spend time with my three kids. I’m determined to make sure the journey for me as a coach is theirs as well, but I have to be involved in what they’re doing as well, because why have kids if you’re not going to be a good dad?
MM: What did you make of your portrayal in the Amazon doco and how others reacted to it?
LC: That doesn’t worry me — people can make their own decisions. There was probably a bit too much swearing, but they’re always going to grab the juicy bits. My coaching hasn’t changed a hell of a lot from last year to this one, or the year before that. I would’ve learned a couple of things, because I learn something every year. But imagine if that Amazon camera was in our walls in 2019? I probably would have been portrayed as, ‘How good is the coach, because he’s got to the grand final?’. We’re in the win-loss business, and you’re going to be portrayed differently from losing to winning.
MM: One of the major scenes was you telling your captain, Stephen Coniglio, you were dropping him for the penultimate round of last year. How tough was that?
LC: I’ve had plenty of hard, awkward conversations in the past 10 years, because we’re in a high-performance environment and we want improvement. But I’m a people person and there’s genuine empathy and honesty involved, so that was extremely hard. I know people are going to judge whether it was the right or wrong thing. Our relationship is very strong. I know people are going to try and drive a wedge between us, but we spend lots of time together.
MM: How has he handled, while being sidelined with injuries, all the commentary that Toby Greene is a better captain than him and should replace him?
LC: Toby and ‘Cogs’ are very close. They’re very good friends off the field, very good friends on the field and they’ve helped each other through this. The more leaders you have at your footy club; the better off you are. If Toby Greene’s become a better captain, along with Josh Kelly, because Stephen’s been out, then we’re better for the experience. Stephen, behind the scenes, has had to work through some tough situations for himself, but if that means he becomes a better captain and also a better player or person, then it’s only a good thing. We’re really proud of all three of them.
MM: What have you made of the Toby Greene furore in the past week and the incident itself?
LC: The disappointment is he’s put himself in a position that we all know is so awkward and he was always going to be judged really hard on this. He’s done the wrong thing and he needs to learn from this, but that doesn’t mean we give up on Toby Greene, just because he’s done the wrong thing. I’m his greatest backer. I back him in and so I should — I’m his coach. I look at it like when one of your children does the wrong thing and they’ve got to apologise. Toby’s apologised and he’s shattered. He knows he’s done the wrong thing. When you’ve got to apologise in life; it’s how you apologise, then what you do about it is what we’ve got to make sure we get right. We put our arms around him, we’ve got to educate him and we’ve got to work through some things to make sure this really hard situation Toby found himself in at the weekend never, ever happens again.
MM: This is now the 22nd time Toby’s been found guilty, whether a fine or a suspension. Will he learn this time?
LC: I think we’re dealing with a totally different situation here. The rap sheet, I understand that. He’s put himself in a really awkward situation here and we all know how awkward it’s become. But some of the other things he’s gone through are pure footy incidents and we’ve got to continue to educate him on those as well. But this is a different one, which is why I comment that we really need to learn from this one. But I’m not going to give up, because the day you give up, what does it say to your person, who every day you’re asking them to do hard pre-seasons and everything else? He will learn from this and this is going to be a hard pill to swallow. It’s a raw situation we’re in but we have to learn from it and Toby has as well.
MM: You have the challenge as Giants coach of knowing you will lose key players regularly. What’s that like, with your major rivals often adding to their arsenal at the same time?
LC: People will say, ‘Spoiled brats, you lose players because you’ve got too many of them’. But I think we’ve done a really good job to make sure our players are comfortable and want to stay for the right reason. You guys can comment on that, but it’s been a team effort to keep players at our footy club, considering the first two years we won two or three games, were getting belted by 100 points and we’re in western Sydney in rugby league territory. It’s disappointing to lose players, because they’re really good people and I still have relationships with a lot of them. But there’s only so many players who can be on the list and only so much money in the cap.
MM: We know Josh Kelly is staying and will be a Giants ‘lifer’, as you call them. How big was that for the club, and when will Jacob Hopper follow suit?
LC: Josh and Jacob both procrastinate a bit. But for Josh to make that decision to become a lifer at the Giants is just wonderful, unbelievable news. As for Jacob, I’m really confident he’ll sign. He lives in a great house, he’s settled and he’s got a great partner, Liv. I can’t see it not happening. I think he’s just that hellbent on playing combative footy every weekend. Whenever the season stops, he’ll go, ‘Righto, I’m going to take a breath, now slide the contract in front of me and I’ll sign it’.
MM: Tell us about the inroads the Giants are making in Sydney and your rivalry with the Swans.
LC: In Sydney, you have to win. That doesn’t mean you have to win every week, but you’ve got to be a really competitive club to gain eyes on you. We’re up to 30,000 members and we’re only 10 years old. We play a tough, good brand of footy and we have players staying for life. The rivalry is great. They’re a super club, the Swans, and everything we’re trying to be. They’ve won a premiership in the past 10 years and they’ve got a big membership base. In another 10-15 years’ time, we want to get to 50,000-60,000 members. We want to win premierships and capture the hearts of the west and in Canberra and the surrounding areas. We’re on track to do that.
MM: Good luck on Friday night.
LC: Thanks, mate. We’re going to need everything to go our way but we’ll be OK. We’ll leave nothing out there.
AFL to appeal Greene penalty
The AFL has agreed to hold over its appeal against Toby Greene’s three-match ban until after the finals series.
The league announced on Wednesday it would push for a greater penalty against Greene for his bump on umpire Matt Stevic because the sanction was “manifestly inadequate”.
AFL general manager football operations Andrew Dillon said the respect and safety of umpires must be protected.
Greene’s sanction came at the end of a more than four-hour tribunal hearing on Tuesday.
The league’s legal counsel, Jeff Gleeson, wanted a suspension of no fewer than six matches, after the jury members found the GWS star’s conduct to be intentional, aggressive and disrespectful.
A guilty finding on any one of those criteria would have confirmed Greene’s contact on experienced umpire Stevic at three-quarter time of Saturday’s elimination final against Sydney in Launceston was intentional.
The fact the jury members cited all three was why AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan was incredulous on Tuesday at Greene receiving only a three-game ban.
The AFL agreed to delay the appeal on the grounds Greater Western Sydney would not appeal.
“In agreeing to this request, the AFL acknowledges that GWS will not appeal the suspension already imposed on Greene — which rules him out of any further participation in the 2021 Toyota AFL Finals Series — and the travel and quarantine arrangements that GWS is presently subject to which complicates their ability to participate in the forthcoming appeal,” the league said in a statement.
The incident occurred as Greene engaged in a discussion with Stevic about a reversed free kick, with the Giant accusing Swan Justin McInerney of taking “a f***ing dive”.
“I guess I welcomed the tribunal verdict that it was intentional conduct and handing down a sanction,” McLachlan said on Wednesday.
“If I am honest, I find it personally hard to reconcile how it can be intentional, aggressive and disrespectful … and then only get three weeks.
“We asked for six weeks and I am finding it personally hard to reconcile how it can only be three weeks.”
McLachlan said he thought officials at community leagues would find the decision “perplexing” and indicated they were already discussing at that stage what their appeal rights were.
Tough Toby talk on backburner
GWS captain Stephen Coniglio said there would be difficult conversations with Greene about his behaviour but they had to wait.
“We have a game in 48 hours to put all our energy into. In terms of chatting about future stuff, we can do that after the game or next week or whenever, ” Coniglio said on Wednesday.
“We accept the punishment he’s been given. Toby himself has shown remorse for his actions and to the umpire. We simply can’t do that in our game. We hold the umpires in such high regard and treat them with a lot of respect.
“We are definitely disappointed he won’t be running out with us. We have to accept it’s not allowed in our game.
”I’m thinking of him, and when the time is right, if he needs anything, my phone is always on, and if he wants to come and have a chat he can.”
Coniglio said he didn’t see the incident in Launceston amid suggestions Greene’s teammates could have done more to intervene.
“I got asked that after the game and a couple of us weren’t even sure … there’s a lot happening out there and to pick up on everything is quite difficult,” he said.
“For me personally, and a number of other guys, we just missed this one.”
Giant warning: Don’t curb Toby’s enthusiasm
— Marc McGowan, Simeon Thomas-Wilson
Former Carlton enforcer David Rhys-Jones has warned the Giants they risk losing a brilliant matchwinner if they try to curb Toby Greene’s competitive instincts too much.
Rhys-Jones, like ex-field umpire Derek Humphery-Smith, felt a fine would have been a big enough penalty for Greene making contact with umpire Matt Stevic in Saturday’s win over the Swans.
Instead, the 27-year-old forward will sit out the rest of the finals series and the first two rounds of next year if Greater Western Sydney loses to Geelong on Friday night.
Meanwhile, AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan said yesterday the league was considering appealing the decision after he thought the penalty deserved to more severe. It’s expected the AFL will decide today whether it will appeal.
Greene’s now been found guilty 22 times and been suspended for 11 matches – still only halfway to matching Rhys-Jones’ rap sheet – and fined almost $30,000.
Rhys-Jones had periods in his 182-game VFL/AFL career when he tried to rein himself in, but found that made him go “into my shell” and not produce his best football.
“He is who he is. It’s part and parcel of how he plays,” Rhys-Jones told the Herald Sun.
“Maybe he’s got to be a little bit smarter in the way he goes about things, but that’s white line fever for you.
“You cop the good with the bad and you don’t want to take that natural enthusiasm out of him or he’s not going to be the same player.”
Rhys-Jones said he could relate to what Greene was going through, from being “scrutinised within an inch of his life” to being cited for some incidents other footballers wouldn’t.
“This one didn’t look great, but everyone’s jumping up and down as if he’s committed a crime and saying it’s going to filter through the grades and kids will be pushing umpires around,” he said.
“What a load of rubbish that was. It was a brush, he had no intent and if a kid turned around and said, ‘Toby Greene did that’ and ran through an umpire, that’s not even comparable.
“It’s been blown out of proportion and if someone else had have done it, it wouldn’t have got the publicity and news that it has copped and probably would’ve ended up in a fine.”
Collingwood premiership player and Herald Sun columnist Mick McGuane differed to Rhys-Jones in that he approved of Greene’s sanction.
But McGuane agreed with Rhys-Jones that the best footballers play on edge and it is often their point of difference.
“It’s clearly disappointing your best player, or arguably your best player, continues to find himself missing at the pointy end of the year,” McGuane said.
“It’s the old saying, ‘You can’t get a kick in the grandstand’, so you’ve got to learn to control your emotions.
“If there’s any element of doubt, you’re better off deviating, shutting your mouth, keeping your elbows alongside your hips and doing nothing that constitutes poor discipline.”
The AFL is expected to lodge an appeal the three game ban on Wednesday.
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