Let’s relax the vitriol directed at the GWS Giants

Anyone who has induced one iota of commentary from so-called experts or the regular punter regarding the GWS Giants over the past 3-5 years is sure to have a negative picture painted in their heads.

Unless you’re one of the club’s 20,944 members, it’s likely this picture encapsulates motifs not dissimilar to an orange and charcoal version of Frankenstein’s monster.

One created in the underground laboratories of AFL House, fed with number one draft picks, so detested by the public that the only way to fix the issue is to immediately ship them off Tasmania.

Frankly, this perception has become boring, which is bandied about at will like another highly insightful expert comment from Cameron Ling on a Friday night.

It’s important to note that I have been a Richmond Tigers supporter my whole life. I come from a Melbourne-based family of Tigers supporters and have lived in Sydney for nearly two decades and will be vehemently barracking for them on Saturday night.

Notwithstanding this, I am a foundation member of the GWS Giants. Growing up detesting the Swans and their one-sided crowds, the prospect of a second Sydney team resonated well with me, especially living in the west of the city.

The early life of the Giants and the Gold Coast Suns – the Giants’ rogue, troubled older brother – were both met with a dismissive, indifferent attitude from the public. How could they not be? Both teams began at the start of a full and long list build, and the slow start was literally watching boys versus men. The games were irrelevant at best with crowds that reflected this.

Even the most powerful AFL teams don’t draw great crowds when the losses are coming often. Take a look at the Sydney Swans, who after an 0-6 start to the 2017 AFL season had crowds dwindling by the week, to the point where perhaps overeager Giants fans were chiming in with snide comments regarding the diminished attendance for the Red and White.

(Slattery Media)

What also did not help was the introduction of the Western Sydney Wanderers into the A-League in the same year as the GWS Giants. A soccer team clearly generated a much greater interest in the west of Sydney than an AFL team in Blacktown Homebush.

Soccer is also much better equipped to generate a stronger list, in a shorter time, due to the worldwide player market and greater player movement, among many other factors. This was evident by the Wanderers winning the minor premiership in their first season.

Casually supporting the Giants in their early days was a grim task. Teams and fans viewed playing the two expansion clubs twice in a season as an advantage, pencilling in wins in November. Watching the Giants on TV resulted in lengthy analysis from the ever brief and concise Dermott Brereton and company, with words to the effect of ‘what the Giants need to/should have done there was…’ and ‘We can really see where these boys will be in three years’ time’.

Phrases such as these were stated quarter by quarter and play after play every game. Every game was an analysis of how bad and incomplete the football side was. I don’t recall the anti-GWS voices being very prominent back then.

At the tail end of each year, for both expansion clubs, predictions were made about a ‘Grande Exodus’ from the new arrivals. Stories were written about players wanting out, craving immediate success, not enjoying playing outside of Melbourne. Even to this day, GWS players out of contract are met with wild speculation as to which club they will go to, rather than if they will stay or not.

In the (quite regular) case of when these players re-sign with the Giants, articles from Melburnian news corporations frequently headline with “Melbourne Clubs miss out on Giants player”.

The assumed formality that a player will leave the Giants, and the speculation being rather on which club they will go to, is a wearisome annual tradition for Giants fans. To use the Western Sydney Wanderers as another example – at times, the early days of the Giants felt at times like an A-League club, who churn through players like a combine harvester in spring.

It’s hard to support a team with such a ferocious speculated and actual list turnaround each year, such as happened early in the Giants’ lifetime.

In 2015 I became a fully fledged GWS member. What an esteemed honour. I’m still a member in 2017, and the Giants would have to be the one of the best clubs to be a part of in terms of membership. The perks afforded to members for a whole variety of things, football related or other, are actually very commendable. You can get your money’s worth and not go to a single game.

In 2015, the Giants had their list shaped to a greater extent than their earlier years. They knew which players they wanted to keep, and gave them priority. Did this stop the annual speculation that players, contracted or not, would leave? Of course not. But the team had some identity now, some players to follow.

(AAP Image/David Moir)

I began to notice players such as Nick Haynes, whose marks are almost as glorious as his luscious locks, Nathan Wilson, who could hit a 5¢ coin with a Sherrin from 80 metres, and Rory Lobb, who takes marks as though he has trained for one thing in his life and one thing only.

Injuries derailed the 2015 season in a clash with Collingwood. A top eight spot was up for the taking given a win, however the Giants incurred a damaging loss, losing Shane Mumford, Stephen Coniglio, and Phil Davis, three crucial players, for lengthy stints, which ultimately ended their season.

2016 was the year where the cogs fell into place. The Giants were winning games and winning with flair. 2016 was also the peak of the criticisms of the origin of the club, and the gifts they had received from the AFL.

As they progressed into the finals for the first time, and booked themselves a date with the Western Bulldogs in ‘that’ preliminary final, the criticism was at fever pitch. How could a club, only in their fifth year, dare to try and win the competition when there are so many more deserving clubs? How dare they?

We saw on that evening at Homebush, on the Bulldogs’ banner, the attitude held by a large portion of fans.

I’m not going to deny the benefits GWS had, that would be hard work. But I will say, cast an eye north to the Gold Coast, which can only be described as a red and yellow football-sized car crash, and realise that without these gifts, things would be so much worse.

Without these benefits, player retention would have been so severe I doubt 22 players would have remained after 3-4 seasons at the Giants. The players knew that if they stuck together, the success would come. The high amount of top draft picks acted like a glue for players, which reassured the talented youngsters that they were in good company, along with the experienced recruits.

Imagine if the Giants could only have chosen one or two of the following players they received in the 2011 national draft.

1. Jonathon Patton (Pick 1)
2. Stephen Coniglio (Pick 2)
3. Dom Tyson (Pick 3)
4. Will Hoskin-Elliott (Pick 4)
5. Matt Buntine (Pick 5)
6. Nick Haynes (Pick 7)
7. Adam Tomlinson (Pick 9)
8. Toby Greene (Pick 11)

(AAP Image/Mick Tsikas)

Six of these top draft picks make up the core of the Giants line-up, with Dom Tyson and Will Hoskin-Elliott obviously traded to bring in additional players and draft picks.

One only has to look at the Brisbane Lions to know that without a firm belief in the club’s short-term future, top selections will have no issues relocating. The mass exodus from the Lions in 2013 is a clear indicator of this, which happened at a well-established club. I can only imagine the exodus from a club with no history and a limited fan-base such as the Giants, should they have not had the benefits from the AFL.

The criticisms surrounding the Suns over the last six months trumpet the incoming doomsday. They call for the team to move to Tasmania, such are their woes.

I often wonder if the perception of the Giants would be any different if their 2016 finals campaign unfolded a little differently

This is delving into the region of the hypothetical, but imagine for a second the Giants met Hawthorn in week two of the finals, instead of the Bulldogs. The new kids on the block knocking down the club everyone was sick of winning the competition.

Then following this win, the Giants played Geelong (impossible hypothetical, I know), and Sydney in the last two weeks. Three clubs that had had sustained success over a long period of time, falling over against the Giants, a young squad with an air of arrogance about them on occasion.

People were ready for a change and if the Giants had delivered this change, against the big bad wolves of the league, the perception would be at least moderately different.

But hypotheticals aren’t used to build cities and the Giants played the Bulldogs in the greatest good versus evil clash since Lord of the Rings. And everybody knows what happened next.

Fast forward to 2017, and every victory is met with loud cries on social media of ‘GWS: The team the AFL built, that nobody supports and nobody likes’. Personalities regularly take pot shots at the league’s newest club.

Following their record low finals crowd in week two of the finals, Tegan Higginbotham stated on the multi-award winning (I assume) show Bounce that red chairs were the only witnesses to the Giants win. Leigh Matthews said something very similar on game day, ridiculing the support of the club.

The last time I read Sliding Doors, the greatest collection of weekly dribble on the AFL website, was just before the Giants’ 100th game versus Sydney in 2016. The crowd had nearly sold out. What should have been an event met with excitement was instead attacked with cynicism by Damian Barrett where he stated the Giants should send a thank-you card to the Swans for selling out their first game.

Roy Masters of the Sydney Morning Herald even stated the Giants should be renamed to the Grants. Wow.

(Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

How is a club ever supposed to be accepted as a part of the league when alleged journalists, personalities, and even Leigh Matthews, who is regarded as one of the most important voices in the history of the game, so frequently take pot shots at the existence of the GWS Giants?

One of the main reasons I follow the Giants is that we may never see a team like this again. The two expansion clubs were blank canvases. The list managers didn’t have to deal with the problematic past drafts or faulty trade deals gone wrong like the other 16 clubs. Where Gold Coast threw up all over their unpainted masterpiece, the Giants have created one of the most exciting teams, perhaps ever.

How can this not be celebrated. How can the media not be actively encouraging these two teams instead of ripping their popularity apart at every chance? Heaven forbid people get encouraged to attend games on the back of this, and the game grows as a result of the two expansion clubs.

From my attendance at numerous Giants games over the past three years, crowds are on the up. Crowds regularly reaching the vicinity of 12,000-15,000, instead of between 5,000-8,000 as it was in years gone. Unfortunately, this rightfully gets lost in translation when the ground is barely half-full for a semi-final against West Coast (ignoring the fact the Parramatta Eels were playing a final literally across the road simultaneously).

The Giants now face a task harder than perhaps ever seen in football. It will seem that the world is up against them on Saturday night. If they win, they’ll get slammed by the media for their AFL handouts, and if they lose they will no doubt get slammed for not winning, considering the benefits they have received.

Imagine where they would be if they did not have the helping hand they received, and what city the media – social and AFL-accredited – would be suggesting the GWS Giants be relocated to due to their lack of success.