Fremantle great David Mundy is set to suit up for the Seymour Lions in the Goulburn Valley Football League (GVL) in 2024.
Mundy retired from AFL footy at the end of the 2022 season, and almost signed for Seymour then, but has since committed to the club.
The 38-year-old Seymour product last played for the Lions back when he was 16 and will return to his former club for multiple games across the course of next season.
Seymour coach Ben Davey says Freo’s games record holder of 376 AFL matches has been firmly behind the idea.
“It’s a great recruit, it’s brilliant,” Davey said on SEN Breakfast.
“It’s been moving along for a little while. It almost happened last year but he had a few too many commitments, but he was very keen to come and play at his local club.
“He’s been brilliant, really. It hasn’t been a lot of recruiting by me, he’s been driving it pretty much, so it’s been great.”
Davey says there has already been plenty of local interest in Mundy, who kicked six goals in his country footy return for Carngham-Linton as part of the Carlton Draft series last season.
“I’ve had the local newspapers calling and the league are all over it,” Davey added.
“When it nearly happened last year they were very keen to do some publicity around it.
“The Goulburn Valley footy league is a good league, it’s very strong.
“For the local community and the local footballers, they’re rapt. They’ve grown up watching Dave.”
Despite the majority of Seymour players being well aware of Mundy, there was one Lion at a recent training session whose observation skills weren’t quite up to scratch.
“He’s come to training a couple of times over the years which has been really fun,” Davey continued.
“One bloke was devastated one night when he trained with him the whole night and then after training Dave had left and the boys said, ‘How good was it to have David Mundy here’, and this bloke said, ‘Who?! Who was it? No, oh no. I actually spoke to him and said that’s a great jumper, where’d you get your Fremantle jumper from?’
“That was gold.”
Mundy continues to live in Perth and as part of his role with 6PR radio will travel to Melbourne to call Freo games next year. It is then when he’ll attempt to marry up his schedule with playing for Seymour.
He’ll have to play three home and away games to qualify for finals. (They finished second and played two finals in 2023).
The kicker for the Lions is that Mundy will only cost them one point in the points system policy as he’s originally a Seymour local.