Three years out of the coach’s box, Kevin Sheedy still felt some of the same old emotions as he guided his new team Greater Western Sydney for the first time.
One of the greatest coaches in league history following four flags from his 27 seasons leading Essendon, Sheedy has taken on a unique challenge building a totally new club in an AFL outpost.
The Giants made their debut in the pre-season competition in Blacktown on Saturday night and the adolescent footballers at Sheedy’s disposal were a far cry from James Hird and Matthew Lloyd.
There have been plenty of challenges as Sheedy adapts to a new city, a new venue and new staff, but the 63-year-old seems to have retained plenty of his old coaching mojo.
“It’s interesting working with coaches and runners I hadn’t worked with before and listening to a premiership coach (and Giants assistant) in Mark Williams and the anxiety we all get when we don’t see what we want to see,” Sheedy said after GWS were routed by Sydney before a more competitive defeat to the Gold Coast.
“There’s a minute to go and we all want to make a move, but I said to Mark ‘forget about it, we’re too experienced to make a move with 60 seconds to go’.
“The best thing is we got through the game with no injuries, a very young side, most of them teenagers, and we never got an injury.
“We’ll get this right.”
Sheedy is desperate for the western Sydney AFL experiment to succeed and has looked at some other blueprints as he attempts to establish the code in a region totally unfamiliar with Aussie Rules.
It took the Swans years to finally win over the harbour city and it is still an ongoing battle, while the Brisbane Bears endured years of struggle before they merged with Fitzroy.
“Hopefully we can do it better than the last times,” Sheedy said.
“The Sydney Swans to a point when they came up here from South Melbourne and the Brisbane Bears – hopefully we do it better.
“We shouldn’t be wasting this opportunity as a game.
“It was great to see a lot of people in orange and in the second game they started clapping and getting involved and barracking.
“They were getting louder and then they started getting cheeky and I could hear some comments and I thought ‘this is what we want to see’.
“It was good.”
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