"MAKE sure you get that arm right, we're on."

That was the first thing Toby Greene said to Jeremy Cameron when the dual Coleman medallist answered the call he'd been waiting weeks for just after 7am last Thursday.

Cameron had just woken up and was getting ready to drive up the highway to undergo surgery on the broken arm that never fully healed after last year's Grand Final, when his former teammate delivered the news. 

After weeks of internal contemplation and external speculation – partly fuelled by the weekly TFG Tuesdays podcast the pair do with former teammate Tommy Sheridan – Greene sat around his mum's house last Wednesday night and finally made a decision with his wife Georgia, while his long-term manager Paul Connors was on loudspeaker. 

Everything moved fast from there. Stephen Coniglio was the first teammate he called, catching the last remaining inaugural Giant on the phone in Spain before going to bed. 

He started calling other teammates first thing the next morning. He spoke to Greater Western Sydney coach Adam Kingsley, GM Jason McCartney and outgoing CEO Dave Matthews, who announced Greene's decision on SEN radio just after 9am. 

"We got to a decision that night at like 9 or 10 pm. I'd been struggling to make the final call, but that was when it happened," Greene tells AFL.com.au at this week's recording of TFG Tuesdays. 

"I knew I had to call a few people the next morning, but I knew 'Cogs' [Coniglio] was in Europe, so he wasn't going to be awake the next morning, so I called him first. We've been on this journey together at the Giants for 15 years and been best mates, so that was an emotional call with a few tears.

"Then I woke up early the next day and just started calling the appropriate people at the Giants. I spoke to a lot of the boys and staff across the next few days. It's certainly hard and sad to leave a club I love and a city we love, but it's exciting as well for something new.

"It's not something I wanted to put any time and effort into when we were still playing. I wanted to just wait until the end of the season and then spend a couple of weeks thinking about it.

"The first week was really hard, I just had no idea what I was doing; I struggled either way. And then the last few days before I made the decision was sort of heading that way.

"But I had to make that final leap, I guess, and go from there. It was hard, those couple of weeks, but also really lucky. I'm really grateful to be in this position, and to get a three-year deal at my age is something I wouldn't have thought was possible when I was 18."

Greene turns 33 on Friday and will join Geelong on a three-year contract in October. The move wasn't financially motivated. He would have been well paid regardless of where he finished his career. This was a decision based on where the couple wants to raise a family. Without any support in Sydney, they struggled in 2024 after their daughter Isla was born.

"It certainly was really hard – a lot harder for Georgia than me as well – but we just didn't sleep, so that made it hard. But Isla's unreal now, so we're happy as Larry in Sydney. So it's not like we're leaving somewhere we didn't love and people we didn't really like," he says.

"Hopefully we can have maybe three kids down the track and that was going to be a whole lot easier in Victoria than what it would be in Sydney. So that was a big part of it, of the forward thinking ... you don't know what your kids are going to be like. Hopefully we can have another one soon."

Greene has been seen and heard more than ever before this year. Every week he joined Cameron on the Ausmerican Aces podcast, which is run by Sheridan from afar and will be much easier in 2027 when they are all in the same state. 

Across the season Greene also joined the AFL Nation radio team for more than a handful of games in Sydney, working alongside new Tasmania Devils coach Ken Hinkley. SEN has allowed him to be his authentic self on a traditional medium. He calls it as he sees it. Now he sees it as part of his future.

"Media is something I wanted to dip my toes into a bit more (in) the last 12 months and made a conscious decision with SEN and the podcast with Tommy. But probably eight or nine years ago, I hated it; I was the opposite and probably because I brought a fair bit of negativity on myself with some of the things I did," he says. 

"It's really enjoyable and I like the game. But I like, you know, 70 per cent serious and 30 per cent muck around, which I found is a great balance, with the different things I've been doing. It's something that I'd love to continue to work out in the next few years. And while this year was more about understanding if you're good at it and if you like it, the next few years it'll probably be a bit of refining your skills and hopefully something I can do post-footy."

Greene always thought he'd finish playing where he started, but despite being universally regarded as the best Giant ever, a move at this age and stage will help ensure he wrings everything out of the twilight of his career. 

"I expect high standards of myself no matter what, but it's certainly a new challenge and a new environment, so there's no doubt I'll be highly stimulated and really eager to prove myself to new fans and new people and a new club," he says.

Now Greene will spend the next couple of months relocating his life from Sydney to the Surf Coast. He has already found a house in Torquay and will spend plenty of the off-season with 'Jezza', who didn't put any pressure on him to join him at the Cats, but unintentionally planted the seed when he made the same move six years ago.

"I called him after I'd called a few Giants people and he was getting surgery that day, so I said, 'Make sure you get that arm right, we're on'. He was pretty happy. I could sense the excitement in his voice," Greene says.

"I think he went for a run shortly after that because he wanted to get the body moving. It is as much the off-field stuff with him as it is the on-field. I can't wait to spend a bit of time with his farm, with my daughter and his daughter; our families get along really well and he'll be a different player next year with a healthy body. I'm looking forward to kicking it to him."

And just like that, two of the most entertaining players of the 21st century are back in the same forward line. They will be on a mission to go all the way in 2027. TFG Tuesdays will be different next year without the trade narrative, but expect an even greater media presence from Greene.