When the Giants are on, they are sleek, swift, polished and decisive. They are clean to the point of characterless. Their type of greatness is cold, foreign and lacks a little humanity. But it is breathtaking. And if it doesn’t elicit much sympathy, it certainly inspires plenty of awe.
After an odd three-month funk where the Giants appeared everything from disorganised to disinterested, they now, for all intents and purposes, appear to be back.
They were lethal against the Demons, punishing against the Bulldogs. In both games, they got back to attacking in their trademark waves, where they move the ball through the corridor with such pace and fluency that it feels that the ground is ice and they have skates while their opponents are trapped in gumboots.
It starts from a stoppage or a turnover, usually at half-back or the deep wing, and then the ball spills to a man in orange, and then it’s all over. They run in packs, but the pack is more ordered than vicious, everyone spreading at perfect distance, everyone linking with perfect timing.
The story ends, inevitably, with an outnumber inside 50, and an unopposed running goal from 35m out directly in front. The ball sails through the middle of the big sticks, because like a curled finish into the top corner of the net following a beautiful-game chain of Barcelona passes around the edge of the box, it is the only logical endpoint to what preceded it.
(AAP Image/David Moir)
The past two weeks the Giants have had fewer inside 50s than their opponents and won by 35 and 48 points. They are relentlessly clinical, the economy of their movement astounding, the value of their inside 50s double what it might be for most teams.
No one else has the horses that they do to play this breakneck transition offence game. All their midfielders seem to have the same gait – powerful, compact and upright – and their collective running is devastating. If Dylan Shiel isn’t shimmying past jokers then exploding into space, Tom Scully is accelerating past daylight or Josh Kelly is composing himself at the end of the chain for a goal that was always going to be.
The backline, while perhaps not as impenetrable as it once appeared to be, is still loaded with pedigree, and the midfield is unstoppable. The forward line, once a mess of tall bodies, appears to have found itself with reduced height.
With the pace that the Giants play, it does make sense that quicker players around goal would be more useful than the towering behemoths they usually station there. The most interesting question for the Giants going forward will be how they integrate the four-headed hydra of Shane Mumford, Jonathon Patton, Jeremy Cameron and Rory Lobb. Cameron, one suspects, may need to play higher up the ground, and the pressure will be on Lobb to deliver inside 50.
Against the Dogs and Demons, the Giants were the team we always wanted them to be and thought they were. How to explain that bizarre period from Round 6 to Round 19, where the most talented list in the competition only won one game by more than 16 points (against Brisbane absent Dayne Beams), and only three by more than eight?
Injuries and a lack of continuity, perhaps, but the injuries for the Giants have been a touch overstated this year – virtually every week they’ve taken the field they’ve had the most talented line-up in the game.
The more likely culprit is indifference. This is a team that has proven itself to be a ‘flick the switch’ outfit, one that goes through periods of inertia, knowing that when it is required, they can start breathing fire.
Loathsome as it might be, after three months of inertia, the switch appears to have been flicked. And now, with a healthy list and a top two spot awaiting, the AFL looms as their scorched earth.
Eddy Jay
Guest
Agree: Greater Western Sydney is a bloody mouthful, the only three-word moniker in the league. Should reduce it to Western Sydney. The home uniform in both Sydney and Canberra is shyte. Don't mind the away white jumper. I think a better design would be either hoops like Adelaide, or like St Kilda – charcoal, white and orange, with a black back. They're current home design a bit like the old Fremantle design – looked awful, but the purple/white one they have now looks great. Even if they're not a great team this year. The predominantly orange jumper looks like a training strip. Pewk. Team song is OK. Attitude – I can't say. But if you like karate and kung fu, they're the team for you.
Raimond
Roar Guru
It's worth remembering when we talk about the Giants mid-season flat patch is that of the top seven teams from last season, only Adelaide is on-track to improve their competition points tally* this year (and that would be untrue for the Crows too, if they lose their last two H&A matches). The competition has tightened dramatically. *The Giants can equal theirs, but with a significantly lower percentage.
Peter
Guest
Mr Croucher, did you mean "disinterested" or "uninterested" or did an uninformed sub-editor do for you?
Steele
Guest
Coniglio's return is huge, the wider public don't realise how good he has become. Their form line dipped with injuries more than anything.
truetigerfan
Guest
Magpies next year, Peter?
Cat
Roar Guru
No more or less representative than any Melbourne club.
Liam Salter
Roar Guru
Just like you're waiting for the fall of AFLW, aye? ;)
josh
Guest
Not ours in Western Sydney, I think they're referring to Canberra.
republican
Guest
.........I hope not. The plastics will live up to this moniker when the crunch comes because they are spiritless and void of entity. GWS, I mean what community does that acronym represent anyway?
Simoc
Guest
Not for me. I have GWS in a canter. Swans and Crows the closest. The rest no chance.
Gecko
Guest
The Bulldogs showed great intensity in that 2nd quarter but I wouldn't get too carried away with the Giants' performance. The Bulldogs' had two of the slowest forwards in the AFL playing alongside each other and had no forward structure. In the end the Giants just beat a team that is rightfully outside the 8.
Craig Delaney
Guest
Second that Cat. They say it's easy to make money when you start with money. They haven't blown the opportunity in that sense. But have they created a team that can attract a loyal fan base? Western Sydney fans needed a team they could come to love more than one which wins but gathers few hearts.
I ate pies
Guest
The word that best describes GWS is ugly: - Their uniform is ugly - Their team song is ugly - Their attitude is ugly I for one can't wait for the inevitable fall.
I ate pies
Guest
The dogs had double the inside 50's. Their forward line is non-existent. It'd be very hard to keep up the motivation with a forward line like that.
Cat
Roar Guru
Easy to trade well when you have a constant supply of first round picks that can't fit into the side to dangle as bait.
Mattyb
Guest
Interesting comment Seano and I tend to agree. With Cameron out I think there's a spot for Lobb but when he and Mumford return I think Lobb might have to make way.
Mattyb
Guest
Perfectly said mds,The Giants strength has been in how well they've been able to trade,this is also going to benifit them long term. It's easy for people to just point to the start up allowances so that's what they do. Having said all that,they weren't that impressive,no more impressive than Adelaide a couple of weeks back who handed the premiers an equal thrashing. I'd have Adelaide and the Swans on one tier and Giant,Richmond and Geelong on a tier below but still a premiership possibility.
Redb
Roar Guru
Indeed, 20 inside 50's to 1 at one stage in the 2nd qtr and the Bulldogs just couldn't punish them.
mds1970
Roar Guru
In a competition where lists are formed through a draft over several years, the best formula for introducing new teams hasn't been got right. It rarely happens that new teams are introduced, so that's hardly surprising. Obviously a new club needs concessions in the context of such a league to be able to field a team - concessions that every club unanimously agreed to. And without doubt the Giants have been smarter with how they've used their concessions than anyone expected. But the top picks keep coming because of trading; and this is where the Giants have excelled themselves. Other clubs come into trade period with micro-measures, looking to finely touch their lists. The Giants come in to trade period with sledgehammers, make more deals than any other club, and walk away with the spoils. In every year since they've been in the AFL, the Giants have made more trades than any other club; and they've benefitted from that. It's not that the AFL "created a juggernaut of geniuses". They didn't. That was of the Giants' own making.
MG
Roar Rookie
The scary thing for me on Friday night was just how good the Bulldogs played in the 2nd quarter (and had the usual umpire assistance) but only won it by 3.6 vs 3.0. In the second half the Bulldogs looked tired probably from the intensity of that second quarter and GWS ran over them. It will be very hard to beat GWS in the finals unless they get more injuries.