Pies to be invaluable AFL experience: GWS

Greater Western Sydney’s maiden AFL season has involved no shortage of lessons, but Saturday’s clash with Collingwood could well be the side’s most testing examination.

With the Magpies coming off a 47-point loss to Hawthorn, many are expecting they’ll be particularly clinical in disposing of the Giants at Showground Stadium.

While Collingwood stars Dale Thomas and Steele Sidebottom will miss the match due to injury, the likes of Dane Swan, Scott Pendlebury and Dayne Beams will be reigning supreme in the middle.

With so many players from the past two grand finals running around, GWS co-captain Luke Power notes it will be a rare insight into what’s required from his young teammates if they wish to reach such a level.

“What a great learning experience it’ll be for our players to play a great side like Collingwood,” the triple-premiership player said.

“Swan, Pendlebury, Beams, (Travis) Cloke – the list just goes on and on. They’re all great modern-day players.

“And for our players to get to see how they work, how they run and how they play the game – it’s invaluable.

“Hopefully, our players can come away after the weekend and say ‘that’s the level I’ve got to aim for and I can get there’.”

After a relatively-competitive start to the season, GWS have dropped their past four games by an average margin of 117.5 points.

Given the fledgling nature of the Giants, it hasn’t been as downcast a month as ordinarily would be the case.

“You learn a lot more from your losses than your wins. That’s probably life, but you don’t want to lose too much,” Power said.

“We’d like to have more wins and, hopefully over the next few years, we’ll start building that.

“But at the moment, we’ve just got to learn the lessons.

“I think we’ve showed we can match it with teams for a half. We went down to Kardinia Park and were equal (with Geelong) at halftime.

“The other half and those multiple pre-seasons and stronger bodies tend to get hold of us.”

Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley said complacency would not be an issue on the weekend, especially after his side’s poor showing against the Hawks.

“We think they’ve been fairly competitive, especially early in matches,” Buckley said of GWS.

“We just need to worry about playing our best football after last week’s performance.”

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