Toby Greene opens up on a life-changing post-season trip and how he never planned to be captain

Is the ‘Toby tax’ real? The man himself says it’s mostly his own doing, but one incident had him ‘p***** off’ when a star Tiger got off for an incident Greene believes he was rubbed out for.

GWS Giants captain Toby Greene. Picture: Phil Hillyard

Toby Greene is a magnet.

For people, for conversation.

For criticism, for controversy.

For the footy.

His pull is undeniable.

It wasn’t always like this. Well, maybe the controversy part.

Things just happen around Toby.

At a shoot for GQ Australia this week, Greene was in the thick of it in a cool Sydney warehouse shoot for some of the biggest names in the game.

Toby Greene finds a grin at every turn, and is as disarming as he is damaging on the football field. Picture: Phil Hillyard

There’s studio lighting and make-up and people buzz about as the temperature outside rises towards 40.

Inside, the fashion was just as hot.

There’s Gucci loafers, Moncler jackets, Fendi bucket hats, Burberry and Prada and all the names – Greene still getting used to the bright lights that come with being anointed one of the game’s 18 leaders.

“I don’t do heaps of it, but getting better and better at it,” he says of the focus.

“Especially being captain, there’s a few more commitments now. It’s just part of it.”

You get the feeling he lives to laugh.

There’s fun to be found in that face, and in footy.

He’s go, go, go.

Not one for too much eye contact – you get a bit, then when he gets serious, he looks away – Greene gets deep and then pulls back to the shallows, finishing almost every sentence with a smile that breaks one side of his mouth with a smirk only few can properly wear.

With every line, there’s a sense a wisecrack is just waiting to be made.

It’s a cheekiness. Like a schoolboy at the back of the bus who more-than-occasionally treads the line but follows it up with a one-liner that has them in stitches.

Toby Greene is known to be a cheeky character in the game.

But things are serious now.

Once hanging by a thread at the competition’s newest club, there was a fight outside a Melbourne pub, one major indiscretion that Greene acknowledges notching one more of would have seen him out the door.

This time last year, he was serving a five-game ban for bumping umpire Matt Stevic.

Exactly 12 months later, he’s the sole captain of the Giants.

“I’ve certainly come a long way,” Greene says.

There’s that half-smile.

“Even last year, I was super disappointed with the suspension, because I thought I was going really well with footy, on and off field in the lead-up to that.

“I felt like the club was in a decent position and missing the first five games and coming back, our season was almost over by then at 1-4. It was super frustrating.

“I felt like I’d been going really well, even for a couple of years before that.

“There was a huge amount of media attention, and it formed a lot of opinions as well. When you get a big one in the finals, you know about it.”

A smirk, again. Some take it as a lack of gravity, but it’s almost a way to disarm himself and any situation.

The suspension, like the many before it, were “my own doing”.

“But I can understand why people have an opinion and that’s fine. I’ve also learned to deal with that. That’s footy … you learn to deal with it, and I’m just worried about myself and the team now, and getting the best out of everyone, especially the younger group of boys as well.

“I’m super passionate about that. I love it. I love seeing the kids coming through, and I think we’ve got some pretty good talent and I want to make it the best environment possible for them.”

GIZA GAZING

Sipping sweet Egyptian coffee as he walked the chaotic ancient streets of Cairo, Egypt, Greene’s last-minute flight booking paid off.

The Giant’s partner Georgia Stirton – a former college basketballer, his opposite who “grounds me” – had a late call-up to play in a halfcourt streetball tournament at the foot of the Pyramids of Giza.

There was darting through traffic, games of soccer with locals, sharp haircuts, more espresso with shopkeepers, beats with cab drivers.

It all fuelled the travel bug for Greene, who maintains that jetting off is the one major piece of advice he gives to young players.

“It was awesome … really chaotic,” he said of the November jaunt.

“Georgia was going and I was like ‘I’ll come’. I booked it like a week before. I was by myself a lot, because she was doing the basketball stuff. But it was awesome. I loved it. I probably wouldn’t go otherwise, so it was good to tick off.”

Berlin and Amsterdam are firmly in his plans, as is Columbia – “probably best to do that one before having kids”, he says.

Bolivia remains “the most surreal place” Greene has stamped in his passport, with Egypt now a close second.

Greater Western Sydney captain Toby Greene at the pyramids of Giza in Egypt at the end of 2022. Picture: Instagram

“Just walking the streets, there’s so much going on. It was cool late at night and because it’s so hot during the day, no one’s around. At night, you go for dinner at midnight and it’s absolutely packed,” he explains, his excitement at recalling the trip clear.

“It was bloody good fun. I pride myself on my travelling. I just get a second wind when I’m overseas – I’m doing anything and everything. And I love it. I’ve gone away every year I could, besides Covid. I always tell the young boys coming through to make sure they get away, and I reckon it’s one of the best things about footy.

“Some of the boys would go back home for the whole off-season, and then Covid hit. I said ‘you’re stupid … you can go back home whenever you want. Go overseas’.”

Not that he could get away from being recognised, even in the unlikeliest of places – Cairo airport.

“She was Egyptian – she liked footy,” Greene laughed.

Greene found himself recognised in the unlikeliest of places. Picture: Instagram

“It was random as. I’m pretty sure she was a Hawks fan from memory. I remember texting Georgia and saying ‘you wouldn’t believe what’s just happened’.

“There wasn’t many Australians there, to be fair. I did Bali and Fiji … it felt like everyone was from Melbourne.”

THE ‘TOBY TAX’

It was a term coined a few years back when Greene, a regular in the league’s match review hearing each Monday, continually found himself in the officer and, at times, tribunal’s sights.

In 191 games, Greene has been charged 23 times and suspended for a total of 16 games.

His fine tally hovers around the $30,000 mark.

The numbers don’t lie – he knows that.

He doesn’t believe he’s unfairly targeted in the wake of his controversial nature.

But he wouldn’t mind an audience with the match review officer to find out once and for all.

“If I did (ever see him), he’d know,” he says with a laugh.

“I don’t say I feel targeted at all. I bring it on.”

But there is one he’d love to unpick – probably over a beer or two – after Tiger Tom Lynch went unpunished in 2022.

“I don’t read into it, but there’s only one bad one – when I got suspended for (a high elbow on Patrick Dangerfield in 2021), I was trying to break a tackle, I think Tom Lynch did the exact same thing last year and I got two weeks and he got nothing,” Greene says.

“And I’m convinced that his was worse.

“I was pissed off after that. But that was probably the only one.

Toby knows he’s not everyone’s cup of tea.

“It was just two different outcomes for the same situation, that’s all that was. Other than that, it’s mostly my doing.”

It’s largely a head of steam, he said, rather than a deliberate pursuit to misbehave – particularly when it came to the incident with Stevic.

“I just had to be more self-aware … it was a final against the Swans, do or die … it was probably just overflowing with emotion,” he says

“Those bigger games bring it out.”

A longer pause.

“I have to have better awareness in those situations,” Greene said.

“I felt like before that, I was going really well. I always have to be aware of myself, because I know I can push the boundaries pretty easily. Nothing big or bad like what that was, but it’s a constant learning curve.”

LEADING MAN

Greene was drafted from Melbourne’s inner southeast at the end of 2011, and played 19 games in his first year – the Giants’ first in the competition.

He’d come late to elite footy, and was “the opposite” of a leader, a long way from the player new coach Adam Kingsley has poured the faith into as a solo skipper in 2023.

“No way … I was probably more lucky to get through my first couple of years – I was more worried about that than being captain, that’s for sure,” he reflects.

“It wasn’t until four or five years ago that I even started to even contemplate being part of the leadership group. I offered nothing early days in that department.

“It’s just been a big learning curve. It’s been growing, earning the respect of my teammates.

“These days kids come in and you can see it from day one. I was not like that. Cogs and Chook were those two, guys like Tom Green, Finn Callaghan. Super mature kids who have really good habits. I was the opposite (laughs). It’s been a big learning curve, yeah.”

He always had respect from his teammates, trained hard and “wanted to win”. It was the extra bits – “played up a bit”, and admits there’s still one-percenters in training where he could improve.

But he always wanted the best out of himself.

Greene is stand-alone captain for the first time. Picture: Getty Images

“I was actually asked that this week … ‘how would you go about working with a kid that was a young Toby?’,” Greene said.

“If I could see that they wanted the best out of themselves, and they wanted the best out of others, you’d certainly give them the time of day and put a lot of time and effort into them. It’s more when you don’t care and you don’t really want to take care of your career, that’s when kids get in trouble and you can lose some faith.”

In an interview with this newspaper in 2016, Greene said “I don’t think some people like me”.

It weighed on him back then, he knows now.

These days, like many as they work through their formative 20s, it doesn’t really matter to him.

“You cop some stuff early, and you’ve got a lot of people that support you as well. But the older you get, the more mature you get and the more you realise what you actually value in life, the less and less you take notice of exterior noise,” he said.

“That’s just part of maturity and getting older.

“Now, it’s not something I would even consider.

“I am who I am. And I feel like I’ve got really good support within the AFL community. There’d be a few Bulldogs supporters that don’t like me.”

The smirk.

“But that’s footy.”

Originally published as Toby Greene opens up on a life-changing post-season trip and how he never planned to be captain