Giants lose star but storm into top eight

THE GWS Giants Ferrari is well and truly back on the finals road and it barely needed to get out of second gear against a disappointing Gold Coast Suns outfit in the clash of the AFL’S expansion teams.

But just what finals road the Giants will travel — another tilt at a flag or battling to make up the numbers — will largely depend on the extent of a hamstring injury suffered by star Toby Greene in the first quarter of their 26-point win at Metricon.

The loss of their star, and arguably most important player, didn’t put the brakes on the Giants against an insipid Suns outfit as GWS moved level on points with its top-eight rivals.

The Giants led throughout, and were rarely threatened.

Greene had come into the clash of the two expansion clubs in supreme form after booting five against the reigning premier Richmond last time out for the Giants.

Stuart Dew gave youngster Connor Budarick one mighty task by putting him on the Giants superstar, and while the Suns rookie gave a good account of himself at times Greene started the clash strongly.

He missed a chance to kick the first goal of the day, but one minute later set up Tim Taranto, and while he had two behinds he had amassed six disposals in the first quarter.

But as he and Budarick raced after a ball on the wing Greene pulled up with his hamstring injury and was ruled out of the rest of the game at quarter-time.

Both sides in the finals race, a perfect day for footy at Metricon — the bosses at the AFL would have probably had some wry smiles on their faces about the league’s often maligned expansion into the two growth markets.

But the Suns showed there is still a lot of work to be done by Dew’s young team.

They only kicked two goals in three quarters, and too many of their key players such as Lachie Weller, David Swallow, Hugh Greenwood, Sam Day and Touk Miller were too quiet.