Dogs ‘explore’ Jones for return to action
WESTERN Bulldogs football boss Chris Grant has described his meeting with Liam Jones as a mutual investigation and said the former Blue was in “pretty good nick” as he eyed a return to the AFL.
Jones sat down with Bulldogs officials, including list manager Sam Power, at Grant’s Williamstown home.
The meeting heightened the prospect of a homecoming for the 31-year-old, who played 66 games with the Bulldogs at the start of his career before his move to Carlton.
Jones has been in talks with a number of clubs after the AFL recently cleared the way for the vaccine-hesitant defender to play next year.
Grant said the meeting was an “exploration” for both parties but he left confident the backman wanted to make a return to the AFL.
“I’ve got to be open and honest … we obviously caught up with Jonesy,” Grant said on RSN. “You think ‘Let’s do it nice and private, a nice cup of tea together, a nice cup of coffee’ and then two hours later it’s been tweeted.
“I think it was a bit of an investigation for the both of us, really. I know he has met with some other teams as well.
“He, I think, really feels that he would like to come back to AFL. The AFL are still to confirm for him and his player manager Shane Casley what the mechanism for that will be. So it was pretty much an exploration meeting for us both. For him to find out what is going on around our club and for us to find out about him and how his body is.”
In November, Jones walked away from Carlton after 95 games in seven seasons because of the league’s vaccine mandate.
He has been playing for Palm Beach Currumbin in the QAFL.
Grant said Jones remained in good shape.
“He has been playing footy,” he said. “He is the first to admit that it is not at the level of AFL or the conditioning requirements of AFL in playing up on the Gold Coast, but he is still in pretty good nick.
“I guess over the next
month or so the AFL will confirm for him (the mechanism for him to return) and we’ll just wait and see what that means for us.”