Incremental Gains in Footy and Farming with Dylan Grimes

Dylan Grimes grew up around agriculture, then he followed his dream of playing AFL footy - now he’s a footballer and a farmer. IMAGE CREDIT: Dylan Grimes

Looking out over Mount Macedon Winery - the rolling hills, the endless grapevines, the picturesque mountain silhouettes - it’s easy to believe that this place is a source of retreat for AFL footballer, Dylan Grimes.

Dylan is Co-Captain of AFL team, Richmond Football Club. He has premierships, accolades and a dazzling career, but over the past few years, Dylan has taken some of his hard work and determination and turned it toward the property he and his wife own. It certainly comes with challenges that differ entirely from his footy career, but as you’ll read in this conversation (and hear in the podcast), he sees them as opportunities to think about his world off the oval.

Oli: For you, where does this interest in agriculture come from?

Dylan: A lot of my ancestry has been directly involved in agriculture, mum’s parents are farmers, and through my dad’s side there was a pretty strong farming influence as well. I also grew up in an area that was sort of semi-rural, I grew up on a hobby farm and I remember from a young age being inspired by the farmers in my family, the farmers around my family. I remember thinking, if something was broken or something wasn’t working properly, or there was a breakdown in machinery or sick livestock, it was always the farmer that had the answer and was able to fix it.

I remember spending time around relative that were farmers thinking, ‘these guys are the smartest blokes in the room by a mile’ - I guess that was probably where the early inspiration came from. And then, growing up as a kid riding horses and motorbikes and that sort of stuff on farms, it doesn’t get much better than that. So I was keen to get involved in industry where I could do things that I love just like that.

Dylan and teammate, Kamdyn McIntosh IMAGE CREDIT: Dylan Grimes

Oli: What are three words you would use to describe yourself, on or off the footy field?

Dylan: I feel like I’m pretty similar off field as what I am on field to be honest. 

Oli: And what’s that?

Dylan: I’m probably someone that’s pretty structured, I feel like I’m my best when I’m well prepared and that’s on field and off field. I’m someone that’s very driven, I’m a self-motivated person. I like to push myself, I was always told as a kid, no matter what I had a go at, to always try my hardest, I think I do that on-field and off-field. And then yeah, I dunno, I like to have a lot of fun in my life.

I like to make people laugh, I really value good relationships in my life. I really enjoy spending time with people and in particular spending time with people in the country, I feel like that’s me at my happiest. So there’s probably three broad brush ways you could describe me I guess. 

Dylan Grimes and his wife, Elisha, own Mount Macedon Winery. There have been highs, lows and learnings but they love the property - so much so that they got married there! IMAGE CREDIT: Dylan Grimes

Oli: If every job paid the same, what do you reckon you’d do?

Dylan: Well, it’s interesting. When we first started here I was kind of doing my dream which was a lot of the maintenance side of things like spending time on the lawn mower, cutting grass with a stubby in the cupholder was a pretty good way to spend an afternoon - if that paid the same as any other job, I gotta say I really enjoy the maintenance side of things of the farm.

But yeah, I dunno, I guess the more the business grows, the more I miss it. What springs to mind is I really enjoy just being able to not be so attached to the phone or the laptop and just spending time working the land. 

Oli: What's been the greatest learning as you've taken on this property? 

Dylan: There’s been so many, I remember one time, it was early days, we had a shipment of wine coming here and we maxed out the credit card to buy this wine that we had to sell. The wine rocked up on the truck and I just never thought, ‘how are we getting the wine off the truck?’ It just never occurred to me.

So, the wine rocks up, and the guys says “rightio mate, go grab the forklift”, and I looked at him, the farm came with a forklift, I had no idea if it ran or not, I just had to jump on this thing and handle more than I could afford dollar value worth of wine and try and figure out how to get this bloody thing off safely.

[We} managed to, but man there’s been so many moments like that where I’ve been absolutely stretched in terms of stress or fear that you just kind of, I don’t know, you just become more comfortable with that uncomfortable feeling.

Dylan after the Richmond Tigers won the 2020 AFL Premiership. IMAGE CREDIT: Dylan Grimes

Oli: I’d love to know, how has the agriculture space actually benefited your footy career?

Dylan: I absolutely believe in our coach’s philosophy around thriving off field will help you thrive on field, and particularly at the stage of career that I am where I’m closer to the end, it's nice to be actually enjoying the last parts of my career, and not being super stressed about, you know, what am I going to do after footy? And, how am I going to pay the bills?

Finding a career at this time of your career would be stressful, I feel like I’m lucky in that sense. I often say to people I’m too busy to read the media or get down about certain things because I honestly feel that I am.

After a game, the opportunity to be in your sweet spot is really small - you’ve got to have got out of the game uninjured, you’ve got to have played well individually and your teams got to have played well, because sometimes you win and you didn’t play that well. And so for all of those four or five things to happen is actually really rare, and I found that having a really good distraction away from football, something where I'm not checking my phone, or I'm completely switched off from that bubble has been immensely like beneficial for me.

I just can't stress that enough that I've definitely been so much happier with my professional playing career and my performance has been better since I took over this place, without a doubt.

There's definitely been some times that's been really challenging and stressful and I'm sore or tired and harvest is going on or we're cutting hay and the hay has got to come in or whatever the scenario is, like there's been times where I've been pushed beyond my limits and people may say that that's affecting my football, like I went into the club a bit more tired than what I would have been had I been on the couch all day, but I think over the long term this has probably been the best thing for my footy career that I could have done.