Giants of the future

[Jroo]

A little piece I wrote together about the Giants  :)

Giants of the Future

Greater Western Syndey have the most prestigious crop of young players in the land and aren't far of becoming what they claim to be, the Greater Western Sydney Giants; and Giants of the AFL.

They're led by a great coaching panel including one of the greatest coaches of all time in Kevin Sheedy, who has laid the foundations for the coach-in-waiting Leon Cameron; who will take over as head coach of the Giants in 2014. In just a few years time this young side will form a formidable line up, as they've got young stars in every position and once they get games and experience into these youngsters, they'll be ready to dominate the AFL. 

Dylan Shiel
The Giants have recruited well and have gone with a good balance of both youth and experience. They brought in Palmer, Scully, Ward and Davis who were highly touted youngsters and even though they were paid the big bucks, they're valuable players to the Giants and will need to perform if the Giants are to be competitive this year and beyond. They also went for some older and more experienced heads in Cornes, Power, Brogan and MacDonald whose experience and knowledge will be invaluable to these youngsters and even though they may not be superstars on the field anymore, they will be able to protect the younger bodies and also help them off the field.

The Giants have set their team up well for the future. They've got plenty of depth down back. They have five young key defenders who could become anything (Davis, Plowman, Jacksch, Corr and Frost) so they're well set. They also have a few small and medium-sized defenders (Bugg, Buntine, Hampton, Darley and Kennedy). As this young and inexperienced defence plays more games together, they will constantly improve.

But the Giants have absolutely loaded up on midfielders, knowing that all of them not turn out as they planned, but they have so many midfielders it won't be such a big problem. Though without a doubt they have the best young midfielders in the country and I wouldn't be surprised if they have eight elite midfielders by three years time as they've had a lot of early draft picks. The Giants have over 10 potential A grade midfielders (Ward, Congilio, Greene, Shiel, Trealor, Whitfield, Tyson, Scully, Adams, O'Rourke and Hoskin-Elliott).

Jon Giles
They might not have the strongest ruck division, but their decision to pick up Giles for basically nothing has paid off. He was super impressive last year and will continue to lead the Giants ruck division for many years to come. He'll also have the support from Andrew Phillips and Tom Downie, who are still young and developing.

GWS are well set up for the future in terms of key forwards. Jeremy Cameron can already held his own in his first season of senior football and we all now that Jonathon Patton will be a star. The Giants forward line will be hard to stop once Patton and Cameron fully develop. Devon Smtih, Liam Sumner, Adam Tomlinson and Nick Haynes also have the potential to be anything. They're all high draft picks and you would expect them to be decent players for the Giants up forward.

I do think the Giants do have the best young list in the country. They will be competing with the other expansion team the Gold Coast Suns in the coming years and it should make for a tremendous rivalry with the Giants. Though I do think that GWS are better set for the future than Gold Coast and have a better list than them. Even though the Suns have been in the competition for a whole year more, the Giants aren't far off them. GWS have recruited well and their team is in good shape and the Giants nearly have twice as many potential A grade players than Gold Coast do.
However these expansion teams will always have the risk of losing their young stars because of 'Homesickness' as many of their players are from Victoria . Gold Coast have already lost 3 players in Caddy, Hickey and Toy due to this. The Giants already faced this, with Dom Tyson very close to coming back to Melbourne after only one year the the Giants. But they've  prepared well , stocking up on midfielders, so if Tyson was to leave he could have  been replaced. They will try as hard as possible to keep this crop of players together as they know they're capable of big things. They've done this by building a strong culture, as the club has set up camp at Breakfast Point where all the players live together in a small village. The players will build an incredible bond as they will spending every day together. As a result GWS will hope it keeps the playing group together.

Even though the Giants only won the two games last year, they did show a lot of promise and showed us what they're capable of in the future in patches of play.They were impressive in their two wins against the Power and Suns, but also in some close loses; They had four losses under 30 points last year. But the first few years aren't about how many games they win. They're about development and getting experience into this young side. Last year the two grand finalists Sydney and Hawthorn, had an average age of 24 years old  and their players had played an average of 65 and 67 games respectively. While GWS only have an average age of 21 years old and on average their players have played 24 games. So they're another three years in age and 40 games experience of the two grand finalists, so in the next few years the GWS just need to build some experience up by getting games into this young group of players and the results will come.


Israel Folau
Football is yet to take over in Western Sydney, but once the Giants start winning games, they will be hoping they can convent these rugby fans, to GWS and AFL fans. Last year the Giants only attracted a crowd over 10,000 at their home ground at Skoda Stadium once; But the Giants are relatively new and it's hard to draw a crowd, especially as at the moment as they aren't doing too well on the field. This is why the 'Izzy' experience can be seen as a success. The 'Izzy' experience may have been a failure based on his on-field performances, but what he brought to the club off the field, could justify his huge price tag. Folau's number four on the back of GWS guernseys sold twice as much as any other player, suggesting he was a fan favourite.
In Western Sydney, rugby is the main sport and with Folau converting to Aussie Rules he definitly would have brought some rugby fans over and that's why he was paid the big bucks. That's what the Giants need to do, build up a supporter base; if they want to become a serious AFL club they need supporters, even though it will be difficult.

The sky is the limit for this young GWS side and they're not that far off their first finals appearance. This year will be another development year in Kevin Sheedy's last year as coach, but when Leon Cameron takes over in 2014 he will mean business and don't be surprised to see the Giants fighting for a finals berth. But with a young side you can't expect a consistent performance every week from them.

So give the Giants another two years and once they get some games, maturity and experience into these youngsters, then watch out for the Giants and the rest of the competition should be very afraid.

http://www.supercoachhq.com/16/post/2013/04/giants-of-the-future.html

[anchorman]

I think the Raj Neeshies will give some other clubs big head aches this season.
They could give Port a bit of a scare this weekend.

[Ziplock]

I loved izzy :'( I maintain he was going to come good :(

The tyson thing was all made up conjecture, he even publically stated that he had no intention of leaving the giants last year, but richmond kept talking it up :P

[Jroo]

I loved izzy :'( I maintain he was going to come good :(

The tyson thing was all made up conjecture, he even publically stated that he had no intention of leaving the giants last year, but richmond kept talking it up :P

Haha yeah me too, I though Izzy may eventually be okay.
Tyson said he was tempted to come to Richmond and I personally was hoping he wold but I didn't think it would be likely.
Have a look here http://www.afl.com.au/news/2013-02-28/dom-tyson-reveals-how-close-he-came-to-joining-richmond
He says himself he was tempted

[kilbluff1985]

awesome wright up mate agree with everything you said

what's your opinion on Miles? really impressive stats as a junior  played 7 games last year due to injury in the pre season but did pretty well when he was on the park

[Jroo]

awesome wright up mate agree with everything you said

what's your opinion on Miles? really impressive stats as a junior  played 7 games last year due to injury in the pre season but did pretty well when he was on the park

Cheers kilbluff  :)
Yeah I don't mind Miles, thought he was okay. He should be a good player for the Giants

[ossie85]

Great read!

Still, should've been Tas.

But still enjoyed it!

[Jroo]

Great read!

Still, should've been Tas.

But still enjoyed it!

Thanks ossie.
Haha wouldn't mind a Tassie team!

[Noz]

Enjoyed the read mate.

I just don't think that GWS will have the potentional 10 A grade midfielders as soon as they start getting games together and finding what best structure they will go with in the middle you wouldn't want to change that too much, Maybe 5-6 players will push to elite category, The rest won't play enough games to be considered elite.
The hardest part about that would be which midfielders would you want to be permant mids in the team

[Dudge]

Went to the game Sat. night, didn't realise how big Patton was in real life, hes a big boy :o

[Cicjose]

they have everything a team needs down the spine to be a good football side

whether thats 5 years from now or 10 years who knows

[Ziplock]

Went to the game Sat. night, didn't realise how big Patton was in real life, hes a big boy :o

he's absolutely massive lol.