With five rounds remaining this regular season and one of the worst injury tolls in the AFL, the Greater Western Sydney Giants are facing a huge battle to avoid a third consecutive wooden spoon.
The last thing they need is to face a team that hammered them by 113 points almost ten weeks ago this weekend.
We’ll get to the preview shortly, but first the Giants’ bid to avoid last place copped a blow after St Kilda’s surprise thrashing of Fremantle.
Additionally, the Brisbane Lions skipped clear of the Giants and Demons with their fifth win of the season, a 54-point belting of intrastate rivals the Gold Coast Suns.
The Giants, Demons and Saints are all on four wins each, but better percentage sees Leon Cameron’s men 16th on the ladder. However, a horror injury toll could result in them becoming the first three-peat wooden spooners since their neighbours, the Sydney Swans between 1992 and 1994.
The club’s injury toll is among the worst in the competition, with Jeremy Cameron, Lachie Whitfield, Nick Haynes, Stephen Coniglio and Tim Mohr among those who will not play again this season. Additionally, key players Phil Davis and Shane Mumford have missed crucial chunks of the season, preventing the Giants from fielding their strongest possible line-up on a regular basis.
In some overdue good news, defender Heath Shaw will return this weekend against Richmond if he passes the club’s main training session this week.
The Tigers handed the Giants a huge footballing lesson two months ago, kicking eight goals in the first quarter en route to a 113-point victory. It came after their star forward Jack Riewoldt avoided being axed from the side after his criticism of the team’s game plan following their loss to Melbourne the previous week.
Riewoldt’s response was brutal, kicking 11 goals to currently be sitting equal fourth in the race for the Coleman Medal. With the Giants’ defensive stocks well short, the threat of another bag, and an ugly loss looms.
That defeat saw the Giants lose the respect and trust of the AFL community, and caused tension among the playing group. It had been reported afterwards that Jeremy Cameron was considering leaving the club, which he strenuously denied.
Most of the Giants’ senior players have made it clear they want to remain in Sydney to build the club and set it up for future success. This is exactly what the Gold Coast Suns had to go through in their early history, when as a virtual under-20s team they copped numerous hidings from their hardened opponents.
Since that dark day on May 24, the Giants’ worst marginal defeat was by 76 points against Fremantle in Round 17. They also pushed premiership heavyweights Hawthorn and Geelong, losing both by just seven points. However, according to co-captain Phil Davis, the time for honourable losses is over.
There were also wins over the Brisbane Lions and Carlton during June, marking the first time the club had won consecutive matches for the first time in their history. The latter win was made all the more impressive given they were without Cameron and Tom Scully due to injuries.
Since losing to Sydney on June 20, the Tigers have racked up four consecutive wins, including defeating cellar-dwellers St Kilda and Brisbane, top four contenders Port Adelaide and just last week the West Coast Eagles at Patersons Stadium.
Damien Hardwick’s men will enter the match as favourites, and the Giants’ long injury toll means the club will very unlikely represent a different threat to the one that lost by 113 points back in round ten.
Thus, it increases the threat of another likely Tigers feast on the injury-ravaged club, if you also take into consideration their 121-point win in the penultimate round of last season.
Looking on the bright side, however, there’s at least one match the Giants can look to that’s winnable, and that’s against Melbourne, also at the MCG, two weeks later. This match will very likely loom as not only the wooden spoon decider, but also who secures the number one draft pick in this November’s draft.
Meanwhile, as I correctly predicted a few weeks ago, the Giants will conclude the regular season against the Western Bulldogs at Etihad Stadium on Sunday, August 31.
The scheduling for the final round has been released and below I will compare it with what I predicted:
Friday, August 29
Collingwood versus Hawthorn, MCG, 7:50pm^
Saturday, August 30
Carlton versus Essendon, MCG, 1:45pm
Fremantle versus Port Adelaide, Patersons Stadium, 1:10pm AWST#
Sydney Swans versus Richmond, ANZ Stadium, 4:40pm
North Melbourne versus Melbourne, Etihad Stadium, 7:40pm^
Geelong Cats versus Brisbane Lions, Simonds Stadium, 7:40pm
Sunday, August 31
Gold Coast Suns versus West Coast Eagles, Metricon Stadium, 1:10pm^
Adelaide Crows versus St Kilda, Adelaide Oval, 2:50pm ACST^
Western Bulldogs versus GWS Giants, Etihad Stadium, 4:40pm^
^ denotes a correct prediction from my original article two weeks ago.
# denotes a correct prediction timeslot-wise but wrong starting time.
As it turns out, I was right with my prediction of Collingwood and Hawthorn kicking off the round on Friday night, my entire Sunday schedule and the fact that North Melbourne had to play its match against Melbourne on Saturday night.
I was also right with Fremantle versus Port Adelaide being a Saturday afternoon match, but wrong with the 2:40pm start. It has been scheduled to start at 1:10pm Perth time, with the early finish allowing Port Adelaide to return home that evening.
The Sydney Swans versus Richmond match, which I had originally starting at 1:45pm, will start at 4:40pm, with the Carlton versus Essendon match now starting in the earlier timeslot (my original prediction being they start at 7:40pm).
The Cats and Lions (originally predicted 2:10pm start) will be the Saturday night match, with that match likely to be covered by Channel Seven.
SportsFanGC
Roar Guru
Mister Football - I suspect you are referring to Isaac Heeney who is in the Swans academy and played for NSW/ACT at this years Under 18 Carnival. He was originally thought of as possibly a top 10 pick but since Eddie blew up about the academies the Vic Media now have him penciled in as a certain Top 3. In any case the Swans will get him with their first pick probably 17 or 18 this year and the rules will then be changed for Season 2015 where they will need to give more than one pick.
Mister Football
Roar Guru
Is there a stand out number one pick this year? It could be one of those years where you can throw a blanket over the first 3 or 4 picks (recalling that Bontempelli was taken at no. 4 last year, and is looking like the pick of the draft already). In other words, a team like the Giants might prefer to be seen making progress rather than collect a third straight wooden spoon. ps I hear there's a bloke in the Swan's academy who they might be able to take in the first round (pick 13+) who would have gone top 3 otherwise
Avatar
Roar Guru
I'm taking into account the horror injury toll the Giants are facing at the moment, and the fact three (or four, if you include their match against North Melbourne in Canberra) of their last five matches are away from home. Those two alone could result in the Giants winning a third consecutive wooden spoon. It'd be good for the Giants, however, to snare a fourth consecutive number one draft pick, having already had Jon Patton, Lachie Whitfield and Tom Boyd since entering the competition in 2012. The Giants are a talented bunch of players and they even produced last year's All-Australian full-forward in Jeremy Cameron, and there are others that will also soon become All-Australians. St Kilda are also in a rebuilding process and are also desperate for what would be their first number one draft pick since Riewoldt (or Koschitzke) in 2000. So that makes the wooden spoon battle all the more intriguing. We'll just have to wait and see.
Bosk
Roar Rookie
Are you sure you didn't mean to say "injuries conspire IN FAVOR of Giants in wooden spoon battle"? I have a sneaking suspicion snaring yet another #1 pick would put a smile on Leon Cameron's face, and it may even help explain his team's injury list since clubs will often send their players off for end of year surgery earlier when they know finals are out of the equation and juicy draft picks are on the table.