There’s not a whole lot of them when you weigh their numbers up against the powerhouses of the AFL, but the GWS Giants are taking their supporters on one hell of a rollercoaster in 2021.
There have been more lows than highs for the Giants since making the Grand Final in 2019 and last year’s Making Their Mark docu-series on Amazon Prime was really illuminating.
Yet with four games remaining for the season, the Giants are in the eight, half a game clear of the chasing pack – Essendon, Richmond, Fremantle and St Kilda.
It has been quite a remarkable season from GWS, which lost its first three games of the season and has yet to string together more than two straight wins for the entire season.
The same team that beat the Swans at the SCG and Melbourne at the SCG, lost to Hawthorn and drew with North Melbourne. A fortnight ago, they blew a 35-point lead to Sydney. Last week they came from three goals down at half-time to beat in-form Essendon.
The beauty of the Giants (although surely not for coach Leon Cameron) is that the unknown about what will happen from week to week, or even quarter to quarter. They are a sports psychologist’s dream.
Bad news for the Giants this week was that skipper Stephen Coniglio is likely to miss the rest of the season with a toe injury. Better injury is that their best player, Toby Greene will be back from quarantine as will Matt de Boer.
Possession is nine tenths of the law, as they say, and for now, the Giants need to be supplanted. With Port Adelaide, Geelong and Richmond their next three opponents before Carlton to finish, they could go 0-4. Or 4-0.
With the Giants, you just never, ever know.
It’s also a big week for…
Charlie Curnow: It will be 732 days between games for the mercurial Carlton forward when he steps out on Friday night against St Kilda at Marvel Stadium and opinions are divided over whether he should play after barely six quarters of match play in the lead-up. The ‘cotton wool until next year’ idea has obvious merit, but there are so many questions marks now hovering over the Blues – starting with who might be their coach next year – that they can at least eliminate any doubts over Curnow by easing him back over the last four weeks of this season. And in fairness to the player, who has endured a difficult two years, he’d also look forward to a summer where he can attack his training with gusto and confidence, knowing his knee can once again withstand the rigours of senior footy.
North Melbourne: Full credit to the Kangas. They’re playing like a side that really doesn’t want to win the spoon and their 3-3-1 record over their last seven games matches that of premiership aspirant Melbourne. Their progress in the second half of the season under David Noble has been stunning and they’ll relish the chance to ‘host’ Geelong in Hobart on Saturday in what will be the first game played by the Cats in the Tassie capital. Sadly, Ben Cunnington won’t play after surgery to remove a testicular and we wish him a safe and speedy recovery. Hopefully it will take no emotional toll on the Kangaroos.
Steele Sidebottom: Gets a chance to skipper the Pies on Saturday afternoon, the latest feather in the cap for one of Collingwood’s greatest players of the last 10 years. But will he a be a Pie for much longer? If the Pies are on the hunt for more draft currency later this year, is the silky midfielder – who hasn’t had one of his greatest seasons – be one they might look to offload? It might add a certain poignancy to Saturday’s late afternoon clash at the MCG.
Shannon Hurn: 300 games for the 2018 West Coast premiership skipper and now comfortably the record games holder for the Eagles. Only two players from Western Australian clubs – Matthew Pavlich and David Mundy – have played more games, but what a remarkable feat it is for Hurn to make at least 10 trips across the country every year for 15 years and continue to play so well and with such consistency.
Grant Birchall: It has taken nearly two seasons, but the four-time premiership Hawk will finally get to play his former club, and in a nice touch, in his home state of Tasmania. He missed their round one clash last year (which the Hawks somehow won!) and the two teams haven’t met since. It remains puzzling how the Hawks couldn’t get his injured knee to come good, while since crossing to the Lions, he has barely missed a game.