Giants to get to the bottom of horror injury toll

Greater Western Sydney have drafted in their academy director to get to the bottom of the AFL club’s increasing injury toll.

As the Giants’ woes worsened with concussed co-captain Phil Davis ruled out of Saturday’s crunch clash with North Melbourne, coach Leon Cameron revealed high-performance manager John Quinn had been quietly reviewing their strength and conditioning methods to check for holes.

Quinn, who has worked with Essendon, India’s cricket team, the Socceroos and athletes such as Cathy Freeman, has been investigating for the past three or four weeks and will continue for a further few weeks before giving feedback to Cameron and his staff.

“Whether that’s our medical or coaching department, the way we train, we look at every angle trying to come up with something (about) why this happens,” Cameron said.

“We’ve actually engaged with John to say ‘can you come in and put a fresh set of eyes over our program to look at why are we sustaining some of these injuries’?

“If I’ve got a blind spot and I’m not seeing something … then having another set of eyes of the calibre of John Quinn do that for us can only be a positive thing.”

It comes as Cameron confirmed Davis’ nasty head knock would stop him travelling to Tasmania this weekend, leaving Tim Mohr to cover in defence against the Kangaroos before his predicted return against the Bombers on May 26.

“Better – but he’s not going to play this weekend,” Cameron said.

“It was a really big hit as everyone at the game would have seen.

“He still had some headaches on Sunday and Monday, minor yesterday, but with the concussion protocol obviously if you get to Wednesday and still have some symptoms it probably rules you out for the game.”

It’s another big blow for a side in the throes of a form slump and missing several stars.

Midfield gun Josh Kelly is, yet again, ruled out with a persistent groin injury while injury-plagued Toby Greene is still weeks away and utility Matt de Boer (hamstring) is looking at three rounds.

Brett Deledio (hamstring), Tom Scully (ankle) and Zac Williams (Achilles) are also in the injury ward.

Without the star line-up the Giants suffered successive losses for the first time this season after going down by 25 points to West Coast on Saturday to slip outside the top eight.

GWS have won only one of their past four and have averaged little more than 60 points a game across that stretch.