Contrary to the struggles currently endured by expansion club the Gold Coast Suns in 2015, the GWS Giants and their fans have plenty of reasons to cheer this season.
While only Carlton sit below the Suns on the ladder, the GWS Giants find themselves firmly entrenched inside the top four with six wins and just two losses so far this season. Only the two WA clubs, and cross-town rivals the Sydney Swans, sit higher than the club on the ladder following the conclusion of Round 8.
The Giants’ expected gradual improvement continued when they defeated the Adelaide Crows by 24 points at home on Saturday, kicking the first five goals of the match and never trailing throughout against a side that had beaten them by an average of 86.6 points in their five previous meetings.
And even though the Crows came within five points of them midway through the second quarter, the Giants would show the maturity not seen regularly in previous seasons to post their sixth win of the season and replace their opponents in the top four.
By winning, Leon Cameron’s men not only equalled their total win tally from last season and knocked off their tenth different opponent since entering the AFL in 2012, they also completed the “South Australia Slam” after having defeating Port Adelaide by 34 points in Round 19 of their debut season.
Following on from their upset win over defending premiers Hawthorn, and a 78-point humiliation of bottom-placed Carlton, the Giants’ impressive start to this season is proof enough that they are heading in the right direction after a difficult first few seasons in which embarrassing triple-figure losses were far more common than wins, or even competitive efforts.
The club’s two big off-season recruits, Ryan Griffen and Joel Patfull, are settling well into western Sydney, the pair having joined Shane Mumford and Heath Shaw as other experienced heads who chose to call the area home in 2014.
Thus, as it turned out, their decision not to sign Lance “Buddy” Franklin as had been speculated throughout most of the 2013 season (he instead joined cross-town rivals the Sydney Swans on a nine-year, multi-million dollar contract), has paid massive dividends.
As a result, their starting line-up, in particular their defence, which copped plenty in the first three seasons, is starting to become more settled. Their own forwards, namely Jeremy Cameron, Cameron McCarthy and the injured Jonathon Patton, are starting to develop into dangerous forwards in their own right.
Only twice this season has the club conceded three figures in a match, with both coming in losses to the Sydney Swans (121 points) and West Coast Eagles (130) in Rounds 3 and 5, respectively.
Up forward, Cameron and McCarthy have kicked 47 goals between them this season and both sit third and seventh respectively in the Coleman Medal leaderboard. Only Josh Kennedy (31) and Eddie Betts (29) have kicked more goals than the former.
The club’s highest ever score of 19.21 (135), and highest-ever winning margin (78 points), both achieved against Carlton in Round 7, could have been much bigger had they managed to kick straighter.
It was their inaccurate kicking that prevented them from potentially achieving a 100-point win, which would have been significant given the club has lost twelve matches by the dreaded triple-figure margin since entering the competition in 2012.
In fact, 12 months have now passed since the club last suffered a defeat of that magnitude, against Richmond at home in Round 10 last season. It is a major sign of how far the club have come from the horrors of the dark, early days.
While the Giants find themselves firmly entrenched inside the top four along with cross-town rivals the Sydney Swans and the two Western Australia clubs, they should not get way ahead of themselves just yet.
Last year, fellow expansion club the Gold Coast Suns held a record of seven wins and two losses, and sat third on the ladder after Round 10, and many believed that the Suns were well ahead of the Giants as far as development was concerned.
In that same round, the Giants copped that humiliating 113-point loss to Richmond at home, and had also been beaten by a similar margin against the West Coast Eagles in Perth a fortnight earlier with only a bye sandwiched in between.
However, the Suns would fall apart in the second half of the season, and their captain Gary Ablett Jr would suffer a serious shoulder injury from which he has yet to fully recover from. It was the club’s inability to regularly win without their captain in the side which led to the sacking of their foundation coach, Guy McKenna.
In fact, the Suns appear to be going backwards under new coach Rodney Eade, however, a horror injury toll has not helped their cause, with Ablett and their high-profile recruit Nick Malceski among those currently sidelined.
Their plight only got worse when they copped a 69-point thrashing by Collingwood at home on Saturday night. The crowd of 16,440 for the match at Metricon Stadium was the lowest in the four matches between the two clubs at the venue to date.
Only Carlton and its worse percentage (64.9% to the Suns’ 69.8%) is keeping the Suns off the bottom of the ladder, and with matches to come against Hawthorn, the Sydney Swans and the undefeated Fremantle prior to their Round 12 bye, things could get even more bleaker for Rodney Eade’s men, who were expected to take the next step up and contend for finals this season.
However, it’s the Giants who are the ones seriously contending for September this year and it’s not hard to see why.
While they are in nearly the exact same position as to where the Suns were last year, the club will be out to ensure that what happened to their fellow expansion rivals twelve months ago doesn’t happen to them this season.
Key to the Giants not falling into that same trap as the Suns last year is the club ensuring that their key players remain free from injuries and the wrath of the AFL judiciary, in addition to them continuing their red hot form which has not gone unnoticed this season.
Star forward Jeremy Cameron was booked for forceful front-on contact in the win against the Crows but given the incident looked minor at best, the 2013 All-Australian should escape with at best a fine or a reprimand.
Meanwhile, on the injury front, only Rhys Palmer, Adam Tomlinson and Jonathon Patton are missing from the club’s best 22 and it would be so hard dropping anyone when they return, given how well the club have been playing this season.
The club can now look forward to a number of winnable matches in the lead-up to their Round 13 bye – they will start favourites to defeat the Western Bulldogs, who have lost their last three matches, at Etihad Stadium this Saturday night.
After the grudge match of the season, the club will host the struggling Brisbane Lions at home for the first time, and having defeated them at the Gabba last season, you’d expect that the Giants will start as favourites in that one as well.
The club will then face Collingwood (at the MCG) and North Melbourne (at Spotless Stadium) before they enter the bye, during which they can look back at what they have achieved so far in 2015 and prepare for what is likely to be a good run home.
Following the week off, the Giants will face some more winnable matches including second shots at St Kilda (at Spotless Stadium) and the Gold Coast Suns (at Metricon Stadium) on either side of a six-day break.
However, the club will also have to trek west for a second time this season to face another club that has enjoyed a strong stranglehold on them since entering the competition in 2012 – the Fremantle Dockers – in Round 18.
They will also have to fly to Adelaide for their only engagement with Port Adelaide in Round 20. Both of these difficult road trips will come on either side of a home game against Essendon in Round 19.
The final three rounds will see the Giants take on the Sydney Swans and Carlton, both at home and for a second time in 2015, in Rounds 21 and 22 respectively before the club wraps up their regular season against Melbourne at Etihad Stadium.
In recent seasons, 12 wins has become the unofficial threshold to reach the finals. At present, the Giants have currently half of that, and regardless of what happens for the remainder of 2015, this is already their best season ever.
However, Leon Cameron’s men will have no intention of stopping at six wins, given they will almost certainly start favourites to defeat the Western Bulldogs and Brisbane Lions in the next fortnight.
As the saying goes, the sky is the limit. How many more games will the GWS Giants win this season? Can their plethora of talented and experienced players remain injury-free? And more importantly, can they make the finals?
We may be roughly a third into the new season, but if the Giants can continue their hot form, stay injury and judiciary-free and refrain from the thrashings that have plagued their first three seasons, then anything is possible.
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