Resilient Giants keen to silence naysayers
RESILIENCE.
It’s the word that crops up more frequently than any other when the GWS Giants reflect on their short history heading into the club’s first AFL Grand Final.
The perception of some outside NSW that GWS have had a dream run and are the league’s favoured child and pet project doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
While some established clubs fume over the glut of talent GWS had access to in their first couple of drafts, the reality is they were always going to suffer a few years down the track for successfully identifying so many future stars.
Salary cap pressure and the homesickness factor has meant GWS has had to offload a significant amount of talented players.
Virtually every AFL club has picked up a Giant or two during the past few years, with Collingwood and Essendon among the chief beneficiaries.
The Pies side beaten by GWS in last Saturday’s preliminary final contained three former Giants in Adam Treloar, Taylor Adams and Will Hoskin-Elliott.
Essendon swooped on Devon Smith and Dylan Shiel respectively during the last two trade periods.
For all the talent the Giants stockpiled early in their existence, the AFL’s youngest club had neither the on-field experience nor physical strength to be competitive with more established clubs.
Cynics pointed to low attendances and poor results in their first few seasons and queried whether backing a second NSW club had been an expensive and pointless exercise for the AFL in such a competitive Sydney sporting market headed by rugby league.
Five games were lost by 100 or more points in their first season in 2012, another five in the following year.
“It feels like it was another career in a way because of those early days, it was just very different,” GWS defender Adam Kennedy said this week.
“We copped a few hidings (in the) early days but I think that built the resilience of this club and that’s why we are in the position we are now.”
Another Giants foundation player, utility Adam Tomlinson also marvels at the club’s rise in recent years after enduring those fallow early seasons when GWS won just three games across their first two campaigns.
Tomlinson, who has played in just about every position for GWS, said resilience played a big part of the club from the start.
“I can’t describe what it is to make this grand final,” Tomlinson said. “I look back to that first season and in the pre-season we trained on baseball fields — we were in portables.
“We played against Hawthorn and lost by 162 points.
“I look back on those times and back then you just never thought we’d be in this position.
“That built the culture and the foundations of this footy club and it’s shone through in the last month especially.”
After being held goalless in successive second halves late in the season, the Giants have won four straight.
Their desperation in clinging on to narrow leads under enormous pressure in the closing minutes of their last two finals shows they have arrived and belong on the big stage tomorrow.