By Malcolm Conn
Brodie Grundy is relieved he is no longer the news.
Wandering around his new neighbourhood of North Bondi with fiancee Rachael, the Swans’ latest ruckman may stand head and shoulders above the crowd, but he is just another anonymous face.
“You’re not in Hollywood, you’re Off-Broadway,” Grundy told this masthead. “It’s nice. It’s just more me. I’m a bit of low-key operator and come in and hit him hard when I need to, and go home and recalibrate.”
Hollywood is Melbourne, the centre of the AFL universe, and Off-Broadway is where AFL sits in Sydney: a full house at the SCG one night, uninterrupted coffee the next morning.
Grundy, 29, has made a huge impact for the Swans over the past fortnight, playing a pivotal role overcoming his old sides Melbourne and Collingwood to help set his new club up with a flying start to the season.
And the Swans will be looking for him to do the same against Essendon at the SCG this Saturday night in front of what may be another sellout crowd.
Brodie Grundy in Sydney Swans colours for the first time late last year at Coogee.Credit: Phil Hillyard
“I think it has helped that I can fully switch off and be a bit more present when I’m home,” he said. “Not have little reminders like walking into a cafe and there’s the papers and they’re full of the footy.
“People aren’t talking to me down the street about the game and there’s a bit more of a work-life barrier there. When I’m home I’m really home and present. And when I’m at the footy club, I can really dial in and be really super-present there. I think that’s a good thing.”
It’s part of his new “normal” after a decade at Collingwood which netted two All-Australian selections, two club-best player awards and a seven-year, $7 million contract heading into the 2021 season. He had his heart set on playing 300 games for the club.
But Grundy was traded out at the end of 2022 after knee and ankle injuries restricted him to just six games and Darcy Cameron rucked gallantly in his absence. Collingwood charged deep into the finals, losing their preliminary final to the Swans in Sydney by a point.
Max Gawn and Brodie Grundy embrace after the Swans’ season-opening win over Melbourne.Credit: Getty Images
He won’t divulge the details of his final meeting with Magpie coach Craig McRae but releasing their ruck star freed up salary cap space at a club on the march.
Grundy was as surprised as anyone when Melbourne came calling – given they have the most decorated big man in the AFL, Max Gawn – but Gawn sat in the recruitment meeting and all sounded rosy. Then Grundy finished the season in the reserves. “Strategies change,” he said.
“Experience as a senior player being out of the side and dealing with injury, I think that’s given me great perspective now as a senior player and a leader, being able to empathise with all people on the playing list and where they are,” Grundy said.
“And I think that just allows you to form closer relationships with people and have a shared sort of experience as opposed to what people perceive: that the football journey is linear.
“It’s actually just goes to show that it doesn’t matter where you are in your career, you’ve always got to have that perspective that there’s going to be ups and downs.
“And now I have great perspective, and I think it’s allowed me to come to Sydney with great intention about what I want to get out of the rest of my football journey.
“A large part of that adversity and time there at Melbourne was to reinforce that I’m still someone that loves to compete and play at the highest level. I’ve still got that ambition.
“That’s why me and my fiancee have left our family home in Melbourne and just gone chips in to make the most of what is a finite career. It was really, I think, in some respects healthy to actually have that period of challenge and learn and grow from it.”
So did he have a point to prove when he lined up for the Swans against a strong Melbourne side and reigning premiers Collingwood in the first two matches of the season as his team’s leading ruckman for the first time in three years?
Brodie Grundy and the ruckman who usurped him at Collingwood, Darcy Cameron, compete in front of 80,000 fans at the MCG last week.Credit: Getty
“I don’t to be honest,” he said. “I don’t feel like there’s any story or narrative around that. I have just made a move up here to get back to playing senior football and contributing to this team and I think my strengths as a player, my contested ball and my follow-up and my pressure around the contest can really complement this midfield and that’s what I’m looking to do.
“By virtue of having had my recent career ups and downs I’m trying not to get attached to these narratives that are constantly spun around me as a player.
“I’m trying to stay really locked in and keep really engaged with what I need to do as a player to perform and I think those sort of superficial things are largely irrelevant.”
Isaac Heeney has been gaining most of the attention from the Swans’ flying start, as blond midfielders tend to do, now he has been released from a half-forward flank role in the absence of injured engine room trio Callum Mills, Luke Parker and Taylor Adams.
However, Grundy’s figures as the Swans’ prime mover show a remarkable turnaround from last season. In 2023 the now-retired Tom Hickey and his understudy Peter Ladhams managed 21 games between them with Hayden McLean pinch-hitting.
While two games this season is a small sample, Grundy was up against Gawn, a six-time All-Australian, in the opening game against Melbourne and Collingwood’s Cameron; premiership ruckmen who forced Grundy out of both clubs.
He beat them both over the past fortnight, with hitouts to advantage, first possession and clearances all well up on the Swans’ lowly offerings the previous year.
Grundy wants to make that the new normal.
Sports news, results and expert commentary. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.