Lyon couldn't resist pumping up GWS at our expense but the sad thing is we'll most likely roll over anyway
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Vulnerable Tigers could give GWS Giants something to yap about Garry Lyon
The Age
May 23, 2014 - 5:10PM Greater Western Sydney took a significant step forward in its metamorphosis from a fledgling, start-up football team to a legitimate member of the AFL competition last week.
That the Giants' leadership group was prepared to impose a stuff suspension and $5000 penalty on Toby Greene after his late-night incident at a Caulfield pub was both appropriate and required.
It may not have sat well with his management group or the AFL Players Association but it was the sort of hard-lined precedent that needed to be set by a football club still in its infancy and predominantly made up of similar-aged youngsters grappling with the full-time requirements of a professional sporting organisation. Youngsters, too, who have forged a reputation for being verbally aggressive on the football field in a manner that has players from opposition clubs raising their collective eyebrows at their brash and cocky attitude.
Put simply, there are players in this side whose swagger does not match their output on game day. And while that, in itself, is not an enormous issue, given that it is consistent with a far more confident and self-assured youth of today, the honeymoon period for this group is rapidly coming to an end.
It is time for this football club to get its season, and its future back on track. Saturday's game against Richmond could be the most important in its short existence. And if the Giants are not viewing it that way, they should.
They are coming off one of the most insipid performances in their 52-game history. West Coast toyed with them at Subiaco two weeks ago, and did as it liked, handing out a 111-point belting. And it is not the fact that they copped a hiding that was most troubling, for we expect that to happen to them from time to time. It was the manner in which they succumbed so easily that was so damning on the group.
If you want to be aggressive with your voice, and get in the face of the opposition when the ball is dead,then it is incumbent on you to back up those words with a fierce and aggressive attack on the football, a committed and selfless attitude to tackling and applying pressure on the opposition when it has the ball, and to have the courage to run equally as hard defensively as you do when there is an opportunity to win possession or kick a goal.
After a promising start to the season, where the Giants beat Sydney in a round one upset of monumental proportions, and a win against Melbourne in round three, there has been decreasing evidence of that kind of football played. The rate of development of the players, if not stalled, is showing signs of slowing, at the very time their closest contemporaries, the Gold Coast Suns, are flying.
Granted they have been dealt a rough hand with injury, but this side must re-establish its resilience and fight in the face of adversity that was beginning to define it towards the end of last year, and early this year, regardless of the scoreboard.
In the past four weeks the Giants have conceded 91 goals against Adelaide, Gold Coast, Port Adelaide and West Coast. They have been far too easily scored against and it all came to a crashing thud against the Eagles a fortnight ago. That kind of uncompetitiveness has to stop
It looked like a group of kids having their first outing together, rather than the very best young talent assembled, into their third year of AFL football, accompanied by a couple of experienced heads brought in to provide leadership and to enforce structure and discipline.
One of those experienced heads, Heath Shaw, signed a very lucrative five-year deal to join the club from Collingwood. Now is the time for him to earn his money. Can he be the constructive, definitive leader that the club hopes he will be or does he simply kick chase off half-back and absolve himself of responsibility?
The bye may have come at the right time for the Giants, and I would be staggered if Leon Cameron didn't lay some uncomfortable truths at the feet of his playing group. It would have been spent revisiting what they want to stand for as a group, the non-negotiables of their style of play and, hopefully, a commitment to be more demanding of each other in their pursuit of improvement.
There is no doubt that Melbourne has been the most unsuccessful team of the past four years. What Paul Roos has been able to do is to identify the one, initial, area that he wanted to focus on. That they have become a far harder team to score against has enabled them to stay in contests longer, provided confidence among the group and enabled them to become a little bit more expansive as each week goes by.
The Giants need something similar to hang their hats on. They have avoided scrutiny and, for the most part, criticism because the expectations of a brand new club are reasonable and patient.
The patience will wear out quickly unless they decide to make a stand. The Toby Greene decision should be the starting point for a much higher standard of expectation from this group, on and off the field.
And Saturday's game provides GWS with the perfect opportunity to stuff the tough off-field decision with an equally tough, uncompromising, unapologetic stance on the field.
The Giants confront vulnerable opponents who appear to be second-guessing themselves and are low on confidence, and even lower on form. Richmond's best two players, Trent Cotchin and Brett Deledio appear less than 100 per cent fit, its enforcer, Ivan Maric, is still a week away, its most consistent defender, David Astbury, is out for the year, and its best-performed youngster, Nick Vlaustin, is out with a finger injury.
At the same time, the Giants welcome back their three best players. Shane Mumford, a man who exerts enormous influence on his own team, and huge physical pressure on the opposition will cause enormous headaches for the Tigers' big men. The sublimely talented Jeremy Cameron will be a nightmare match-up for the defence and ball magnet Adam Treloar bolsters a midfield group that, if it is prepared to run both ways, matches up favourably with the opposition.
All of the talk this week has been on Richmond, and how disappointing its season has been. Jack Riewoldt threw even more fuel on an already fiercely burning fire at Punt Road when he referred to the fact that his team "went one way with our game, and the game went the other way''.
The comments thrust an under-siege Damien Hardwick, and his "Hawthorn-like game plan" even further under the spotlight and placed Riewoldt's spot in the senior side in jeopardy.
It was the last thing the Tigers needed, but it should be jumped upon by Cameron as he prepares his group for this game.
The Giants must become more ruthless as an outfit. No longer can they exist on pure potential and prodigious talent. The Tigers are ripe for the picking. The Giants are rested and should be falling over themselves to eradicate the embarrassment of the West Coast performance.
They are in front of their home crowd. Their coaching group has had two weeks to work on their minds and freshen their bodies. Captain Callum Ward stood in front of the press last week and justified the strong stance they took on one of their most talented young footballers.
They need to start winning back respect. Then they may have something to yap about.
http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/vulnerable-tigers-could-give-gws-giants-something-to-yap-about-20140523-zrm1f.html#ixzz32WpYSJz8
