GRIGG’S GFL GIG?
While his former team prepares to take on the Giants in the AFL Grand Final on Saturday, retired Richmond premiership player Shaun Grigg is weighing up offers to join a GFL club next year
RICHMOND premiership player Shaun Grigg is the subject of a tug of war as local clubs jostle for his services.
Newtown & Chilwell is in the race for the retired Tiger, but the club concedes a host of other teams are fighting for his signature.
Grigg has moved to Geelong and is likely to play in the GFL next season, weighing up lucrative offers from a number of teams. He partied with the Eagles’ reserves premiership players on Saturday night and has strong links to Elderslie Reserve, putting the club in a strong position.
Speculation was rife that Grigg, who played 171 games for Richmond, including the 2017 premiership, and 43 games for Carlton over a 13year AFL career, had put pen to paper.
But Newtown & Chilwell coach Damien McMahon hosed down those rumours.
“No, that’s incorrect,” McMahon said yesterday.
“Shaun celebrated with our guys on the weekend, and he’s certainly someone of interest, but he hasn’t signed at this stage.
“He’s on our list of targets, he’s one of half a dozen, and I like to think that of those half a dozen we end up with four of those.
“But at the moment our main priority is to re-sign all our current players and we’re well on the way with that, and we’re also well on the way with lots of players and we’ve been doing that since mid-season.
“It’s no secret that we’ll be doing what we can to top up our list with some mature-age talent and that’s what we’re doing at the moment.”
McMahon said Grigg was close friends with Luke Kermond and former player Ash McCorkell and now resides near the club.
“He’s just moved to Geelong, he’s living in Newtown,” McMahon said.
“He’s a Ballarat boy that went to school with a couple of our players at St Pat’s and there’s a connection through that.
“And over the years he’s spent some time with our players at functions and weddings, so that’s where the connection comes from.
“Lots of other clubs are talking to him as well, and we believe some clubs have made him some pretty big offers, but we’re hopeful that if he’s to play football next year that he plays at Newtown.”
McMahon said there was “still some water to go under the bridge” in signing Grigg, with work a key component.
“At the moment his primary focus is to work out what he wants to do work-wise — the big picture — and he’s still a little undecided what he wants to do there because he’s got a lot of offers from a number of organisations,” McMahon said.
“But he’s not in a position to make a decision on football until he knows exactly what he’s doing work-wise. That’s where it stops and we respect that.
“He knows that we’re interested and we’d love to have him, and if he decides to play footy, we’d like to think Newtown will be his club of choice.
“If he doesn’t play footy, we’d like to hope we’d have him part of our club in some capacity, whether that’s a member or supporter or get involved in our junior program.”