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AFL top 100: Round 2, Greater Western Sydney versus North Melbourne

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Roar Guru
5th June, 2020
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The new boys on the block are still coming!

After four years in a row of finals performances, the Giants made the big stage last year and were soundly thrashed by Richmond. This year they will be out to atone, and after a 32-point win over last year’s minor premiers Geelong in Round 1, they will be keen to add the scalp of North Melbourne to the list.

The Kangaroos were also first-round winners with a two-point win over St Kilda. Although they finished 12th last year, North Melbourne won seven of their last 12 games last year after Rhyce Shaw took over from Brad Scott mid-season. A similar win-loss ratio this year should see them make the eight.

The two teams last met in Round 13 in 2019 when the Giants beat North Melbourne by 23 points at Blundstone Arena in Hobart in Shaw’s third game (and first loss) after taking over from Brad Scott. So Giants coach Leon Cameron currently has a 1-0 winning ratio, while North Melbourne have won six of their previous nine encounters.

The only two AFL top 100 members in the game will both be wearing the orange, charcoal and white of Greater Western Sydney.

The first is Heath Shaw, courtesy of his 173-game career at Collingwood prior to his move to the Giants in 2014. He currently sits in 62nd position on the AFL top 100 game-players list with 309 games.

The second is Jeremy Cameron, who became the first solely Greater Western Sydney player to make either the games or goals list last year and now sits on 96th position on the all-time AFL top 100 goal-scorers chart with 406 goals. Cameron became the 97th player to kick 400 goals in the AFL/VFL.

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Jeremy Cameron

(AAP Image/Julian Smith)

Phil Davis, joint captain of the club every year until Stephen Coniglio took over this season, will hopefully play his 150th game for the club – the third player to do so.

At the other end of the scale, former Crow Sam Jacobs and draftee Tom Green played their first game for the club in Round 1 with Jacobs being the 100th player to pull on a Giants jumper. The Giants will be hoping that Jacobs can at least partially make up for the loss of inaugural players Jonathon Patton, who was traded to Hawthorn, and Adam Tomlinson, who left the club as a free agent and went to Melbourne.

Two North Melbourne players will bring up the traditional milestone of 150 AFL games in this match. One is Robbie Tarrant, the younger brother of former Collingwood and Fremantle player Chris Tarrant, who has played all his career at North Melbourne. The other is Jasper Pittard, who played 126 games for Port Adelaide before being recruited by the Roos in 2018.

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Tarrant’s 150th game will draw him level with tough 1920s and 1930s ruckman Johnny Lewis, the biggest man in the league at that time. Lewis captain-coached North Melbourne in 1930 but the club only won one game, so next year he remained as captain only and won the club’s goal-kicking. He won the goal-kicking again in 1935 and this time won the best and fairest as well. This was his last year at North Melbourne and he moved on to Melbourne before finishing his career in 1938.

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North Melbourne’s current leading game-player, Todd Goldstein, if he plays in this game will move ahead of former Horsham player Craig Sholl into outright 18th position on North Melbourne’s all-time top 100 game-players list. Sholl, who tasted premiership success in 1996 and 1999, played his 200th game in the 1998 grand final, which North Melbourne lost to Adelaide. He also won the Kangaroos’ best and fairest in 1991 and bowed out of footy after the 2000 preliminary final against Melbourne in which he kicked seven goals.

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