Brodie Grundy moved to a third AFL club when he joined the Sydney Swans last week.
After just one season with Melbourne, the two-time All-Australian ruckman moved on to the Swans who have taken on the final four years of the seven-year contract he signed with Collingwood in early 2020.
It is understood that the Magpies will continue to contribute, paying around $250,000 of Grundy’s contract with the Swans, while the Demons have now washed their hands of it and will pay nothing.
All of this money talk surrounding the two-time Copeland Trophy winner started back in late 2019.
The Adelaide Crows were showing plenty of interest in Grundy, but the Pies were able to offer him a rich deal over seven years which would net him close to $1 million per season.
But just three seasons later, he was off to the Demons and now finds himself a Swan, leading Nathan Buckley to suggest that perhaps the Pies should have let him go before he put pen to the lengthy and lucrative contract.
Buckley, who was Collingwood coach at the time, was asked how the deal ended up for his former club.
“Not well, ultimately, as you can see,” he said on SEN Breakfast.
“Some trades that might not make sense from the outside, they’re actually good for both parties. If Brodie had have moved, whether it would have been free agency or trade at the end of 2019, he would have been a dual Copeland Trophy winner back-to-back in ‘18 and ‘19.
“We would have looked like we were going pretty well. We probably would have looked mad letting a player like Brodie go.
“But it was definitely the move that we should have made and that should have been made. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but it would have been better for the club and it would have been better for Brodie if you sort of move in a different direction.
“‘Brodes’ gets back to Adelaide, he’s happy at the Adelaide Crows, who knows what would have happened over that side.
“We definitely would have been in better shape.”
But did Buckley think this at the time?
“There were definitely conversations that took place internally that considered that alternative,” he added.
“It was prevalent thinking through 2019.”
So why did Grundy stay?
Buckley admits that a lot of it came down to money with the club being able to find some salary cap space in order to hang onto the prized asset.
“Because apparently we found a way to keep him (financially),” Buckley said further.
“Which has since proven to be a rod for the club’s back and for Brodie’s.
“I’m rapt that (he has found another club), I think about it from the human side of it. Brodie has to accept (it), he put his hand up, his manager drove a hard bargain. He was playing awesome football, the best ruckman in the league with Max Gawn, All-Australian, and had proven himself as one of the hottest commodities in the game.
“But you’ve still got to weigh that up against everything else and the circumstances that you’re in, your TPP (Total Player Payments), your needs, where do rucks sit. Brodes has struggled through the last three years and he had basically been unwanted at Collingwood and for the reasons being part of the TPP that was easiest to shift and to change.
“The other (aspect) was he chose a club (Melbourne) that he was probably superfluous to. Now he goes to Sydney, he’s required as the number one ruckman, he gets to be able to ply his trade, these next couple of years are probably the years you should be playing your best football.
“I’m really interested and hopeful that he can settle in and his complete his AFL journey successfully.”
The Collingwood football department was at the time happy to let Grundy go for the price the Crows were offering, but the board said the club needed to find a way to keep him.
Buckley reveals that a decision to part pays with Grundy had been made, but ultimately the club decided to retain his services for the future.
“That’s about right,” he concluded.
“But it wasn’t so much about what we were going to get, and what we weren’t going to get.
“The proposition was we can’t afford to keep everyone so we needed to make a hard decision (to let him go) and then that hard decision was made, but we didn’t follow through with it.”
Grundy will now done the red and white of the Swans in 2024 where he will team up with former Collingwood colleague Taylor Adams.