One of the most extraordinary quarters of the 2023 season began with a pitiful sight, as a buckled Josh Bruce was assisted around the boundary line by two Western Bulldogs trainers. Sportspeople who tear their ACL for the first time often don’t immediately grasp the severity of it. Last week, Adelaide’s Nick Murray was doing mobility drills, giving the thumbs up to medicos and seemingly good to go. Not long after, he was tapped on the shoulder. See you in 12 months.
But Bruce had been there before. He knew. He recently described the video of his first ACL reconstruction. “They’re like carpenters,” he said. “It’s sickening. You wake up and it’s like: “what the fuck did they just do to me? It takes six months to get over the bone bruising.” He’s 6ft 6in, on the wrong side of 30 and looking at his second knee reconstruction in as many years. It really is a prick of a game sometimes.
Toby Greene had a better half hour. There was nothing spectacular about it. He didn’t take any hangers, and didn’t kick any goals out of his backside. But it was a lesson in forward craft, in constantly staying involved in the play, in getting to the right spots, in goose stepping out of trouble and in being two or three steps ahead of your direct opponent. Some footballers just slide into games. Greene bludgeons, bluffs and wills himself upon them. Seven kicks, six score involvements and four goals later, he’d done exactly that. His team has now won seven in a row. They’ve won in nine different venues, in six different states. They’re never beaten, and Greene is a major reason for that.
In 2011, he seemed destined to be a Brisbane player. That year’s draft was, as always, like a cross between a yearling sale and a Tattslotto draw. With GWS guaranteed 11 of the first 14 picks, they may as well have held it in a studio with Baby John Burgess and three independent observers. But Brisbane opted for Billy Longer, who didn’t work out. At a function afterwards, looking every inch like the cat that had got the cream, Kevin Sheedy addressed his new players – a mix of kids, converts and chancers. “You are the game,” he told them. “You hold in your hand the opportunities for the next generation of Australian people to fall in love with, and have a passion for, a sport they have never known.”
“You need to have a few cowboys at your footy club,” Sheedy always said. Back in the day, if you had sharp elbows and a sufficiently surly on-field persona, you qualified as a footy villain. These are more sensitive, sensible, censorious times. Toby Greene is hardly the most menacing or problematic young man walking the streets, or playing professional football. But at various times, he’s been the most despised footballer in the country, a young man perpetually on his final warning. Whether gouging, spitting, karate kicking, mouthing off or punching on, he’s done a lot of stupid things, left a lot of carnage and really pushed his luck.
But studs up, chest out and jaw jutted, he’s done it his way. He’s adored by his teammates, his coaches and anyone he lets in. Football needs more Toby Greenes. It needs more quarters like what we saw in Ballarat on Saturday. It’s a shame his talents haven’t been showcased on a bigger stage, and that he doesn’t play in front of 60 or 70 thousand people every couple of weeks. Saturday’s masterclass took place in the Victorian gold fields, on a ground named after a chocolate bar. But maybe he never would have lasted in the Melbourne, Adelaide or Perth fish-bowls. Maybe the very nature of the Giants – off the radar, and with a bit of a chip on the shoulder – has suited Toby to a T.
Taylor Walker has trodden a similarly troubled track over the years, and he’s deserved every whack he’s copped. But to hear the authoritative thwack of ball on his boot is quite something. There are few more sumptuous kicks, few better techniques, few surer set shots. “It’s a nice little feather in the cap but I think it could have gone to anyone,” he said of his Showdown medal. As far as faux modesty goes, it was up there with Greene’s “I just played my role”.
Turn it up Toby. Turn it up Tex. Tell us what you really think. If that is role playing, then I’m a monkey’s uncle. We all saw it. Most of us loved it. In a sport where you subvert to the team, and where peacocks quickly have their wings clipped, both reminded us that there’s still room for the individual, for the footballer whose mastery of their craft and force of personality can make you forget there’s anyone else on the field.
