Dogs Plan To Do Something Special For Their 'granty'

The Sunday Age

Sunday August 6, 2006

JAKE NIALL

THERE is a statue of the great E.J. Whitten at the entrance to the ground that bears his name, while the outer wing at Footscray was dubbed "the Doug Hawkins Wing" in the course of Dougie's 329 games for the Bulldogs.

Now, the Bulldogs are searching for an appropriate way to honour Chris Grant, who yesterday played his 330th game, overtaking Hawkins as the club's games record holder. In a sense, though, the Dogs have already honoured him - by defeating Richmond, their old coach's team, and almost assuring Grant of another chance to play finals.

"E.J. has his statue. Doug Hawkins has his wing. What are we going to do for Granty?" said Bulldogs' president David Smorgon, wearing a smile as wide as Brad Johnson's, after Grant's record breaker. "And that's something that the board and management team are thinking seriously about.

"There's no hurry because if he plays on next year and obviously it would be something that would be appropriate when he hangs up his boots, but he is in that category where we need to recognise him and do something very special for Chris Grant."

Yesterday, the occasion transcended a match that was otherwise pretty shabby. If further proof was required that Grant's 330th game was something significant, it came at 12.30pm when Doug Hawkins turned up in the rooms in a suit. And not a cheap one, either.

Dougie was there, of course, to formally pass the baton, just as E.J. had done for Hawkins in round 17, 1994, at what was then the Western Oval.

When Grant took the field, Hawkins and the late E.J. Whitten's son, Ted jnr, ran alongside him. Grant is not given to great public displays of emotion, yet he admitted that this was one of those rare moments.

"I must admit, when you pick up your kids and you're going out for an occasion like that, that's always a little bit harder. And put the kids down and E.J. jnr and Hawk are waiting on the other side, so, yeah, probably that first minute or so running out there was a little bit emotional. I don't get emotional too often, but that was a bit difficult."

Whitten snr and Hawkins, the Braybrook boys, were celebrated at Footscray because, as Smorgon said yesterday, they were the extroverted exceptions to the club's culture. Grant, although he didn't grow up next to the ground like Dougie and E.J., carries himself with the self-effacing humility and quiet grace that personified the old Footscray.

"I think he would sit very equally with E.J. and Hawk in terms of what the Bulldogs stand for," said Smorgon. "And to get James Hird to come the other day and speak to our players and say what Chris means to Hird and the rest of the football playing fraternity was an ultimate compliment.

"I don't know there would be too many other players that would have commanded such a respect from someone as revered as James Hird."

And Grant has meant more to the Bulldogs than either of the Braybrook boys in that he possibly held the life of the club in his hands a decade ago, when he spurned offers to leave and stuck with his Dogs, legend having it that a kid's 20-cent donation swayed him to stay.

Smorgon said yesterday that another four or five senior players probably would have walked had Grant bailed and who knows what might have become of the Bulldogs, then $3 million in the red, with 22 uncontracted players and sitting at the ladder's rear end. When Smorgon's group took over the club, their first task "was to convince Chris to stay".

He is no longer the franchise, as he was then, but he would not playing under Rodney Eade - a coach seldom swayed by sentiment - if he were not well and truly earning his keep. Yesterday, he did that, grabbing 10 marks at both ends, finding the ball 21 times and contributing 2.2 on an afternoon when goals were not plentiful.

His contribution was greatest in the period in which the game's result was determined - the start. Within 40 seconds of the bounce, Grant had marked a Brad Johnson pass 40 metres from goal. Instinctively, he gave it back to Johnno, who goaled.

A few minutes on, he led strongly and marked on the edge of the 50-metre arc. A few years ago, this was the kind of shot that he was apt to miss. Not yesterday. He drilled it and was away.

"In an occasion like that, it's bloody important to get yourself involved as much as you can early in the game," said Grant of his fly start. "Whether it's a goal, whether it's a tackle . . .. that tended to get you back on to track."

The other defining moment came in the final quarter, with Richmond within 17 points. The ball was kicked high into the Tiger forward 50 metres, where Richo and Jay Schulz lurked. Grant, now pushing back behind the ball, snatched the steadying mark.

© 2006 The Sunday Age

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