The Roar
The Roar

AFL
Advertisement

Giants eye super sports club status

Ashley Guest of the GWS Giants during their WAFL match at the Ikon Stadium in Melbourne on Saturday, February 11, 2017. (AAP Image/Mal Fairclough)
19th February, 2017
15

Greater Western Sydney believe they’re a step closer to becoming a powerhouse club in Australian sport after an historic Super Saturday.

All three Giants teams – AFL, AFLW and Super Netball – played on the same day for the first time.

Around 4000 people attended each of the three fixtures and It was a momentous day for both the AFL Women’s and netball teams.

At Blacktown in western Sydney, the Giants fought out a thrilling 43-43 draw with Fremantle in the first AFLW match played in NSW.

A few hours later, Giants Netball played in the first match of the inaugural Super competition, scoring a five-goal derby win over NSW Swifts at Sydney Olympic Park Sports Centre.

Sandwiched between the women’s games, the Giants’ AFL men’s side beat West Coast by 33 points in a pre-season game in Narrandera in country NSW.

“It was momentous, it really was a historic day,” GWS Giants chief executive officer David Matthews told AAP on Sunday.

“For the netball team to be playing their first ever (Super) game and to have a win in a derby is just an outstanding start to their history.

Advertisement

“The (AFL) Women’s game, I was overwhelmed by the atmosphere.

“We went so close to our first win in the women’s AFL competition, but the draw was probably a fitting result in the end. That’s a bit of history in itself, the first draw in the AFLW competition. .

“To play West Coast and beat them in front of a parochial Giants crowd was great as well.

“It’s incredibly exciting when you think almost 12,000 people across three different venues were watching three different varieties of Giants sport.

“But just really overall it was a Super Saturday.”

The youngest AFL club has always had big ambitions.

“We’ve always aspired to be a club like no other, ” Matthews said.

Advertisement

“That’s part of our purpose is to continue to provide family entertainment for the people in western Sydney and Canberra.

“It’s just such a natural thing to have two platforms for women’s sport as well now..

“We’re hopefully over time going to become a genuinely big sporting club and to be represented in three competitions is fantastic..

“I think the future is very bright. In amongst our 15,000 members there’s almost a couple of thousand just of the AFLW team.

“i know that Giants Netball would have been delighted to have sold that game out yesterday. As a starting point, that sets the benchmark for them going forward.”

.Matthews said the three Giants three teams already spent time together and there was plans for that interaction to increase.

“There is a fair bit of integration between the three teams. We’ll increasingly do social things together,” he said.

Advertisement

“But they also do a lot of work in terms of sharing the various strategies or training needs.”

close