GIANTS LAY TO REST SOME BIG DEMONS
THEIR song talks about a big, big sound, but it was all about the big, big chip on the shoulder of every GWS player going into Friday night’s Grand Final rematch with Richmond.
The last time they met the Tigers, it was on the game’s biggest stage and they were embarrassed by a yellow and black tsunami wave.
More recently, they were also dealing with a stinging barb from former Giant Brett Deledio, who said this week the Giants were playing like a bunch of individuals.
Football analyst and Collingwood premiership star Mick McGuane described this game as the Giants’ line-inthe-sand moment.
It was by no means emphatic, but it was still the response GWS coach Leon Cameron would have wanted.
The caveat is the win came against a grossly inexperienced Richmond team missing seven players from its premiership side.
There was no skipper Trent Cotchin, Dion Prestia, Bachar Houli, Shane Edwards, Toby Nankervis, Josh Caddy or David Astbury.
Yet had it not been for the brilliance of Toby Greene, who kicked five goals in one of the best performances of the season, the Tigers might just have pinched it.
“We knew it was backs against the wall sort of stuff,” Greene told Channel 7.
“We got ourselves in that position.
“Richmond is obviously a bloody good side.
“They gave us a touch up last year. It was a great win and really important.
“Now we’ve got to stick to it and keep building on it.”
When Richmond dissects why it lost this one, the tape of the second term will be given a workout.
The Tigers completely dominated a 20-minute period for a return of one goal and three behinds.
They had 10 connective inside 50 entries, while the Giants did not go in until late in the term.
Yet the fine touch of Greene and Josh Kelly meant the home side somehow went in with lead at the main break.
The match will almost certainly reignite debate over the deliberate rushed behind rule.
Giant Aidan Corr might want an explanation after coughing up a goal in the first term when he was penalised for holding the ball.
Corr was on Richmond’s goal line under pressure, and instead of rushing a behind — as he would be allowed to under the rule — he tried to take the Tigers on and became unstuck.
“I don’t like to say it, but that’s just dumb,” North Melbourne legend Wayne Carey said on Channel 7.
In Corr’s defence, maybe he was thinking back to when Swan Callum Mills was tackled by Jack Riewoldt over the goal line and pinged for it earlier this month.
Perhaps he panicked because the rule, at times, can be a crapshoot.
In a sombre note to the evening’s proceedings, there was a minute’s silence for former Tiger Shane Tuck before the opening bounce.
Coach Damien Hardwick, stand-in skipper Riewoldt and Dustin Martin looked full of emotion as they linked arms together shoulder to shoulder.
Fittingly they were together, and all played alongside Tuck in Hardwick’s first win as a coach 10 years earlier.
That win came in Round 10 after nine consecutive losses to open Hardwick’s career in charge at Punt Road.
Tuck played an instrumental role in Hardwick’s first victory, earning a Brownlow vote that day after notching up 31 disposals.