Award winning journalist and GIANTS recruiter Emma Quayle sits down with his former captain Callan Ward, fellow forward Harry Himmelberg and number one pick Aaron Cadman to dissect what makes Toby Greene, Toby Greene. 

Toby the Player

Callan Ward:

He’s really surprised me as a player. When he first came in, he was a scrappy little ball magnet. He didn’t have much polish. I had no idea he could take a contested mark. But when he went forward and started learning about all the things he had to know, he would be out there every day working on it.

It didn’t just happen, he made it happen.

I honestly didn’t think he had it in him, but when he takes something on, he wants to master it, and he just impresses me all the time. Sometimes you stop and watch him and think, how good is this guy? And it’s not through luck, it’s through how hard he works. During the week he’s doing all the work, I see him at training doing all the normal sort of professional stuff, ticking the boxes the same as everyone else, and then on game day produces this amazing stuff that’s a combination of how smart he is, how hard he wants to work guys over and a bit of genius as well. And he’s always the man, always the guy who stands up. If we ever need someone to do something, you can tell he’s ready to lift.

He always walks with a bit of a strut, but you can see it in his eyes, the focus, the way he looks at you. He wants to be that guy and it’s one of the best things about playing footy, to be out there when you see that look in Toby Greene’s eyes. You have no idea what he’s going to do, but you can see the focus and something ticking over in his brain, and you know it’s going to be pretty special.

Harry Himmelberg:

It’s funny, because early days as a young player I almost felt like a spectator when I played with him. He’d do these things and you’d find yourself just watching on in awe, almost. But as time goes on you just come to realise that the out of this world stuff is just him doing the right thing at the right time, over and over again. It’s normal for him, you just expect it.

The situation he’s in or the size of the moment doesn’t seem to determine what he does, he just keeps doing the right thing. And I don’t think he feels much pressure out there. He backs himself in every time, with everything. I’ve seen him stressed before, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen any pressure get to him.

For all the brilliant stuff he does, he’s such a level-headed player, and it calms everyone around him. He knows where the game is at, he knows what to say when we’re together at three-quarter time, he knows what he has to do, what we have to do. He helps the rest of us stay in the moment like he does.

Aaron Cadman:

When he’s on the field he makes everyone around him better.

He’s always talking, always giving me feedback on where I should be standing, always watching and taking everything in.

He’s helping keep me in the game with how smart he is, keeping me on my toes, making sure I’m just competing and bringing it down for him.

On the track, I honestly don’t ever think I’ve seen anyone train so hard. Even if it’s just a ground ball effort he goes 100 per cent, 100 per cent of the time. He’s flat out.

On the field his footy IQ is ridiculous. He said to me the other week, he’s not the quickest player or the most powerful, but he gets an edge on his opponent because he’ll start three steps before them. He’s gone before anyone knows what’s happening. He’s so good at reading the ball, reading cues. A few times he’s said, this is about to happen, and it happens exactly how he predicts. And to be out on the ground seeing him do what he does, it’s amazing. That goal in the Sydney game, you see him run into the stoppage and think, he’s going to do something special here. You don’t know what he's doing, and no-one knows what he’s doing, but he just finds a way. It’s so amazing to have a teammate that you can trust the way you can trust him.

Toby the Person

Callan Ward:

I find him to be such an impressive person. And I wasn’t sure about him, early days. I had to get to know him.

I was just intrigued by his mindset early days because I knew he trained really hard, prepared really well and recovered really well, but he was having a pretty good time away from the field.

I knew straight away that he was a very loyal person and that he loved his mates and loved his teammates, but he was still a bit immature and a bit unpredictable; you didn’t always know what you would get with him and what he’d be up to next.

I don’t really remember when that shifted, but it would have been two or three years in that it started to change. And it shifted in a huge way around 2016, in terms of him completely knowing and what he wanted to achieve and going above and beyond what anyone else was doing to achieve it.

He grew up and probably realised for him to get to the level he’s at now, he had to do that. He leaves nothing out there now.

He’s super smart and he’s very selfless; he would put anyone before him. He’s really humble, a bit cheeky, a bit sarcastic. He loves his mum, speaks so highly of his mum. And overall, he’s just a really good person who has it all worked out.

He’s really good at connecting people; he’s one of those people who knows a lot of people and they would all say he takes a real interest in them. I think he's misunderstood by people who don’t really know him. And I love that about him. He’s so mysterious. It’s the question I get asked all the time: what’s Toby Greene like?

Harry Himmelberg:

He’s one of those people that everyone would have a view on without ever having met him or got to know him.

There’s people that seem easy to judge, and he’s probably one of them.

What people never expect to find out is that he’s actually a very shy person. He never has a bad thing to say about anyone, he has massive respect for other people and other players, and he doesn’t judge anyone. He’s an academic too, which might surprise people. He’s doing his MBA now and that sort of sums him up too. He’s always learning, and he applies himself to everything he does.

Aaron Cadman:

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I got here because he’s that guy you see in the media all the time and you think he’s going to be this big personality and a bit out there. I didn’t expect him to be such a head-down, hard work type of guy. He has this perfect balance between switching off and having a joke, and when he works hard, he works harder than anyone. He’s not super loud, he’s not out there, he keeps to himself a fair bit.

I lived with him for a couple of weeks after the draft and it was funny, because him and his girlfriend are complete opposites. Georgia’s really out there and really fun and they mix together so well, Oreo their dog as well.

I was just watching to see what he did, and it was good to see how he prepared, all his routines around training, how he doesn’t eat junk food during the week, what he does when he’s just chilling at home. I was sort of expecting him to be this big, loud personality but he’s just really low-key, head down, not that loud.

When we were home and talking, it was always a meaningful conversation. He’s really down to earth and really humble. He’s one of those people who just finds time for everyone.

Toby the Captain

Callan Ward: 

Being co-captain last year was a good lead-in for him, I think.

He’s always been the guy who leads more by his actions, and he still is that guy in a big way, but he’s definitely taken a lot more on board.

He speaks more, he shares his thoughts more. He’s one of the smartest footballers around in terms of his overall knowledge and the way he sees the game, and he sees it differently to others. I think he’s realised that he does see things differently and that he should be sharing that more.

He used to keep it tucked away a bit, or maybe didn’t feel the need to say something, but now he does. And everyone listens to him, which he also understands more now.

Toby and I are probably similar in that we don’t talk just for the sake of it, but if we have something good to say, we’ll say it.

He has a great feel for his teammate, how they’re going. He can have the hard conversations and the caring conversations. He knows everyone is different and everyone might need something a bit different from him. He has a great relationship with every single guy on the list, he has time for everyone. He’s at the point where he’s one of our best relationship builders now.

Harry Himmelberg: 

I’ve been lucky to have some good captains in my time: Phil, Wardy, Chook (Josh Kelly), Cogs.

Toby’s leadership style is completely different to those guys.

He doesn’t speak a whole lot. When he does, he has meaningful things to say, but it’s the way he carries himself and the way he plays that makes up for his lack of words at times.

I feel like he’s the sort of person who can juggle a lot of things and work with all sorts of different people. He has something for everyone. He wasn’t always like that – we used to joke around that he never gave us anything in our first few years - but at that stage he was still working on his own game and working out who he was.

The way that he’s stepped out of his comfort zone with that has been really good.

Toby’s that person who everyone wants to know, and everyone wants to be close to, and I think that’s where his biggest growth has been, integrating himself into the whole group and finding ways to reach the whole group.

Aaron Cadman: 

He’s a different kind of leader to any I’ve ever had.

The ones I’ve known have been super loud, super vocal. He’s just so caring. He’ll give you a call after a game just to ask how you’re feeling, stuff like that. He seems to know who needs want from him even if it is just that quick phone call.

He knows so much about footy; you can ask him anything and he gives you ideas of how to do things that you would never have thought of yourself. He’s always free for a chat and he has time for everyone. He’s always stirring us first-year boys up, which is good. But if you ever don’t know what’s going on, you know you can go straight to him, and he’ll look after you. He’ll do anything he can think of to help anyone out.