Sydney superstar Brodie Grundy and long-time partner Rachael Wertheim have officially announced their engagement — on social media.
The happy couple both shared a photo of themselves on their Instagram pages in front of the Sydney Harbour Bridge with Rachael sporting an engagement ring.
They captioned the photo with a lock emoji and nothing else.
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A host of former Collingwood and Melbourne teammates were quick to offer their congratulations, including Nick Daicos, Scott Pendlebury, Darcy Moore, Max Gawn and Christian Petracca.
While the photo is the first public image of the engaged couple, Grundy actually let slip the proposal during a media conference this week.
“I was just so impressed their pitch and the first meeting I had, I walked out with my now fiancee and we were just blown away,” he said.
“We walked out and we thought that would be amazing to land up in Sydney.”
The couple grew up together in Adelaide and have been together throughout Grundy’s AFL career, which began when he was drafted by Collingwood in 2012.
Grundy also revealed the pair will be living in North Bondi.
“Me and Rachael came up in the pre-season bye and we were actually sitting up on the North Bondi patch of grass and we were daydreaming about what it would be like to live here and funnily enough it manifested itself,’’ he said.
“We’ve found a place in North Bondi, second day in I’ve gone for a surf and it’s just those added little bonuses.
“Adelaide is a big pull with family but felt I could play my best up here in Sydney. Felt like they were my people if that makes sense, very connected.”
The happy announcement comes after a turbulent season for Grundy, who is now at his third club in the space of 12 months.
He was shipped by Collingwood at the end of 2022 to relieve salary cap pressure and the Demons brought him in to form what looked like a formidable ruck partnership with Max Gawn.
But the experiment failed spectacularly and Grundy was dumped to the VFL after Round 17 before being overlooked during the Demons’ disastrous finals campaign.
The dual All-Australian was then traded to Sydney in the off-season with the Swans’ lifestyle pitch appealing to Grundy and his now fiancee.
The club helped relocate Rachael’s physio work to the Harbour City.
But while Grundy and Rachael are clearly thriving in their new city, not everyone in the footballer’s family were happy with the move.
Grundy recently revealed his mother was hoping he would return to his home state of South Australia.
“She’s pissed. She’s f****** pissed,” Grundy told News Corp.
“Honestly, family is a massive thing. My family is all still in Adelaide.
“(But) we were well-intentioned to have kids and set up our family there in Melbourne. When it became clear that wasn’t going to be an option … it (was like), ‘OK, where do I want to play football?’.
“I feel strongly about my alignment here at Sydney and that was a big enough push to want to come here.
“I told Mum and she was pretty direct in giving me that feedback.
“But she’s come around and now she’s sending me content on Sydney beaches and she’s loving it.
“She just wanted her not-so-little boy to come home. But yeah, that’s all good now.”