The Greater Western Sydney Giants occupy to the top rung after two rounds of the Toyota 2018 AFL Premiership competition, but they will have to stay there, if they can, without the aid of midfielder Tom Scully, who broke his ankle in his side’s win over the Collingwood Magpies at MCG and will require surgery.
The extent, or the recovery time for the injury are both as yet uncertain, but Scully will be sidelined for an extended period.
Given the results the Giants had last season, when they were in the thick of it for most of the home-and-away portion of the fixture, the GWS fixture seems wrought with peril.
They face the Swans in Round 3, then have what for now appears to be an easy time in the next three rounds, with Fremantle, St. Kilda and Brisbane on the calendar, but then they have the Geelong Cats in Round 7, with back-to-back games with the Essendon Bombers and the Adelaide Crows, followed by the unpredictable, but surging Gold Coast Suns before the Giants get their bye week.
The most recent game with the Magpies was closer than would have been anticipated and could have turned out differently, but Coach Leon Cameron had his own spin on the affair, saying that last year, his club would have folded under the pressure, but this year, the entire unit is more mature and cohesive, perhaps beyond what would be normally associated with a club in just its fourth season in the AFL competition.
On the Giants’ website, Cameron said, “When big moments came around I thought everyone out on the field had moments that they’d look back and say ‘that’s improvement’.”
“In the end we found a way to win, and probably this time last year we probably would’ve lost that game.”
Final period goals, two of them, by Vice-Captain Stephen Coniglio proved crucial and the role of Josh Kelly, who laid 15 tackles, cannot be understated.
The ability to find a way to win, even when not everything is firing perfectly, is the sort of things the club needs to make their own giant leap.
