They Might Be Giants

GWS star Tom Scully and coach Kevin Sheedy

I’ve been thinking about writing a piece on this subject for much of the 2013 AFL season and finally got around to it now. We are currently entering Round 19 of the season and the GWS Giants are still yet to win a game this season, after winning two games in the 2012 season. Now it is not a surprise to anyone that the Giants have struggled dramatically on the field in their first two seasons. The way the AFL expansion was set up, it has the new teams be awful early on, but with a dearth of young talent and draft picks to develop and be great by year four or five, as we are just starting to see the signs of with the Gold Coast Suns in their third season.

The problem isn’t the lack of success on the field for the Giants, but rather the lack of success off it. Whilst obviously if the Giants were doing better on the field it would then be easier to grow their fan base, the fact that it was made clear to everyone that the on field results wouldn’t be there should have allowed them to establish a decent core base of fans from which to grow. Unfortunately, that core base to get involved from the jump didn’t materialise in large enough numbers.

Now it may sound like it is purely a moment of ‘Captain Hindsight’ but I and pretty much every AFL fan from Sydney I know saw this coming. The fact is, the AFL never should have expanded and created the GWS Giants in the first place, or at least not for several more years. Whilst Western Sydney is a heavily populated area and is filled with sports fans, there was no evidence that the people in that region wanted their own AFL team. The truly hardcore AFL fans were already Swans fans or fans of Victorian teams and there weren’t many casual fans just waiting to get a team based closer to their home, like there was with the A-League.

Be that as it may, there is a very specific reason the AFL expanded into Western Sydney as early as it did and it isn’t about losing ground to NRL and the Western Sydney Wanderers. The AFL expanded into Western Sydney because they were negotiating a new TV deal and being able to say they had a second team in the biggest TV market, specifically in the most densely populated area of that market, was a huge bargaining chip for the AFL to use to increase the value of the deal. Whether the people in that market actually tune in won’t impact this TV deal, but it might impact the next one if they can’t right the ship.

The idea of having a team in Western Sydney is so much more appealing than the reality of it. But once they made that decision to expand into the market, they needed to execute it correctly to make it at least have a chance.

Unfortunately they seemed to have missed the mark in that way too. In terms of players, whilst their young draft picks are coming along nicely, their recruiting of marquee names was poor. Tom Scully, whilst a young talent, is not nearly the name nor the player that Gary Ablett is or was. Paying Scully to be the face of the organisation from Day One only made sense if he was going to be at All-Australian level from the beginning; otherwise he was just an overpaid and slightly more advanced version of all the kids they were drafting to play with him. If they believed Scully was a star already, they were badly mistaken and if they believed it was wiser to spend the money on a player still developing, it is yet to be proven and seems headed in the wrong direction.

Then they also signed an NRL convert to attract the NRL fans, much like the Gold Coast already did. However the difference is that Folau was never a beloved figure in Western Sydney even though he was born there, plus unlike Karmichael Hunt, he had never played a junior game of AFL. Not to mention the fact that learning a key position is significantly harder than Hunt learning to just attack the ball and his opponent around the ground. The Folau experiment was doomed to fail and whilst he earned good money, he wasted a couple of years of his career that he could have used to dominate the NRL or Super Rugby, as he has done since he switched to play for the Waratahs this year.

Off the field, their promotions failed just as badly. Unlike the Western Sydney Wanderers, the Giants did an awful job endearing themselves to the local community of Western Sydney. I don’t live in that area but I’ve spoken to several sports fans that do and none had any knowledge or relationship with the Giants beyond the standard advertising we saw around the city. If anything, the Giants publically seemed to completely misunderstand the culture of the various people in the area and Kevin Sheedy as coach and figurehead did a truly awful job by being arrogant, dismissing the NRL culture of the area and of course the ethnic background of many in the area. The Giants needed to tap into the community at a grass roots level and if anything they went the other way and alienated many people that could have been won over eventually.

The other problem with the Giants from an AFL standpoint is that the manner in which they did the expansion ended up retarding the ability for struggling, existing clubs like the Melbourne Demons to rebuild. The AFL draft is the main way clubs can rebuild and the Demons have been left in purgatory waiting for the chance to get the draft picks their lack of success has earned them. Sure they made bad decisions along the way, but in the two years they had the number one pick, they selected one bust and one prospect that ditched them for the GWS anyway. If the AFL ever expands again, I think they need to reconsider the way the expansion team builds their squad.

All is not yet lost for the Giants. If they can land a legitimate star like Lance ‘Buddy’ Franklin as rumoured to go along with the development of their young players, their on field performances will clearly improve and give the franchise some star power to try to reach the market again. But they need to throw out everything they have done to this point, all but apologise to the people of the area and start from scratch, building relationships within the communities they are trying to reach.

The on field success will come within the next few years and by default that will increase their fan base, but will it be increasing from abysmal to mediocre, or will it be increasing from mediocre to decent? That will come down to how they go about fixing what is clearly a broken model right now.

But if they can get it right, well then they might be Giants.

On the Road to the Holy Grail

Gary Ablett gets a clearance against St Kilda

The return of footy season is now complete with the AFL having gotten through a full round after two weekends. There were a few big upsets and much like in the NRL, whilst we don’t want to read too much into one game, there are still certainly some takeaways and observations to make after a very interesting round of matches.

Starting with the matches that took place over a week ago now, Essendon surprised many by putting all their off season controversy behind them and beating a very good Crows team in Adelaide. Whilst they may have lost a star in Kurt Tippett, there was and is no reason to think that Adelaide will not continue to be a force in 2013, especially with the continued development of players like Dangerfield, Sloane and Talia.

I expect the Crows to turn it around going forward, but it will be interesting to see if Essendon are actually for real or if they simply had one super performance in them as they were galvanised by the emotion of all the scrutiny they are under.

Even further west, the season saw the first Derby of 2013 with Fremantle looking the good against the Eagles. Both teams should be solid in 2013, but watch for Freo to really take a step up into the elite of the competition. They have a legitimate home field advantage, a coach who brings a very strong culture and a list of real talent, even if people don’t pay enough attention to them. This could be one of those years where the top 8 is dominated by non-Victorian teams.

On Thursday night we saw Richmond finally win a close game and get one over Carlton in their traditional Round 1 match. All three matches to this point had seen a team kick at least three early goals only to go on to lose. I think both Carlton and Richmond will be in a similar position this season, both fighting to make the 8 and at the end of the season and that could be a very handy four points for the Tigers. 2013 might finally be the year they actually get to play in September, however I think that’s about the best they can hope for this year. But I rate Hardwick as a coach and they are headed in the right direction.

Carlton is a hard one to judge. They have the mighty Mick Malthouse at the helm now and with a great coach, a champion in Chris Judd and other stars, they should be a very good team. But there is just something lacking there. They drift in and out of games and they must be very frustrating to support. Malthouse being Malthouse will get them on the right path, but fans will be expecting that to happen sooner rather than later.

On Saturday we saw the Bulldogs annihilate the Lions in a game many thought would be Brisbane’s coming out party. If you ever needed yet another reminder of how irrelevant the NAB Cup is, look at the Lions performance in this game. Preseason form could not mean less in AFL and the Swans have known that for years.

This is the year the Lions need to show they are moving towards a spot in the 8 or else Michael Voss might be looking for a new job. They have some absolute gun young players, although they also don’t have a huge amount of depth across the squad, so they still have a long way to go. I love me some Jack Redden though.

On the other side of the field, what a great performance by the Bulldogs. Many predict they will be real strugglers in 2013 but they didn’t get the message, at least for one game. Brett Goodes debuted at age 28 and put on a show his brother would be proud of. I am also proud of him as I smartly played in in my fantasy team on debut. Keep it up Goodesy!

The Swans as expected beat the Giants in the Sydney derby. The Swans were completely underdone and were not impressive in victory, but I expected as much. They are clearly taking a slow build into the season and looking to find form at the right time, much like Hawthorn did last season after a slow start. If the Swans can have a decent record when Tippett comes into the side half way through the season, then watch out for the champs on the road to September.

The Giants continue to show development and whilst they likely won’t win many games this season, they will make teams work hard to beat them. Patton and Cameron will be a dynamic forward duo and their midfield kids like Toby Greene are studs in the making.

The Gold Coast Suns are one year more advanced than the Giants and they had a big win over St Kilda. I don’t know why but I actually saw this one coming. I think St Kilda is going to struggle this season and it is time Gold Coast were actually competitive. It is year three for them in the AFL and they have no excuses for not being at least decent. Plus they have Gary Ablett and it really isn’t close for who the best player in the AFL is. He’s basically LeBron or Messi at this point.

Collingwood won running away from the Kangas on Sunday and I think that went about as expected. North showed heart but the Pies are just too good. No news there.

Port Adelaide put a beat down on the Demons as well in a game that showed a lot about the direction of both clubs. Port look like they will be competitive at least under new coach Ken Hinkley, whilst Melbourne is an abomination. The only bright light for the Dees’ fans was the performance of their debutants Jack Viney and Mark Jones. Viney in particular looks to be an absolute gun, but it is pretty damning when your best player is an 18 year old kid playing his first game. Half that team should be dropped.

Finally we have the big game between Hawthorn and Geelong. The Hawks started favourites but some things are bigger than that and the Kennett Curse is one of those things. When Geelong started to come back in that game I genuinely think it got into the heads of the Hawks players and they folded like a cheap suit. I expect the Hawks will still be a better team than Geelong this season, but head to head I am tipping the Cats until the Hawks prove me wrong.

It’s so great to have the AFL back in full swing and between the AFL, NRL, Super Rugby, A-League, Premier League and the American sports (March Madness in particular) that was one hell of a sports long weekend. My Dad and I barely moved for four days and I regret nothing.