AFL Rankings: Round 20 2022

 

The GWS Giants have largely been seen a massive disappointment this season, only sitting above the historically poor Eagles and Roos on the ladder, with five wins. Long-time coach Leon Cameron resigned during the season, and interim coach Mark McVeigh questioned on the weekend whether a large part of the team had ‘checked out’. Further (and perhaps not unrelated) there is speculation that young midfielders Jacob Hopper and Tim Taranto could be on the move at the end of the season, as GWS tries to re-balance its playing list.

Not much of this was widely expected from a team that made the finals last season, and are only three years removed from their Grand Final appearance. The Giants – rightly or wrongly – are still perceived to have one of the most talented midfields in the competition, with Hopper and Taranto, along with Josh Kelly, Stephen Coniglio, Lachie Whitfield, Callan Ward, and Tom Green. How can a list so talented be so far down the ladder?

There are probably two main misconceptions about the Giants. The first misconception is that they are stacked with talent: in the past five years they have lost Jeremy Cameron, Dylan Shiel, Zac Williams, Devon Smith, Jeremy Finlayson, Matthew Kennedy, Nathan Wilson, Aidan Corr, and Rory Lobb to other teams when they have still had a good few years of football in them. That weight of departures has to weaken your team at some point.

The second misconception is that they have been one of the best teams of the past few years. The Giants’ peak year was their preliminary final appearance in 2016. That is when the perception of the Giants as a top class midfield solidified in fans’ minds, as they easily outpaced opponents for clearances, contested possessions, inside 50s, and disposals per match (see table below). Their defence was also pretty good in that year. Since then they have gradually lost their advantage in all of these areas. Even their Grand Final season of 2019 seemed better than it was thanks to a couple of (memorable) close finals wins; they were actually behind on inside 50 differential that season. Now in 2022 they are behind in all of the aforementioned categories.

Of their playing group, many have either left or declined from that Grand Final season. Kelly and Coniglio are still stars, although given the amount of salary cap space their contracts take they probably need to be closer to the league’s best midfield combinations such as Melbourne’s Clayton Oliver and Christian Petracca. Green, Sam Taylor, Harry Perryman, Isaac Cumming, and Harry Himmelberg have also emerged as solid players. Whitfield and Hopper have had injury-interrupted seasons however, while few would argue that Ward, Phil Davis, Nick Haynes, or even Toby Greene are as strong as they were a few years back. The Giants (somewhat understandably) have found it hard to replace Jeremy Cameron – particularly with Finlayson also departing – but Williams was probably an underrated loss given his disposal efficiency bringing the ball out of defence, and Heath Shaw was also solid down back during the Giants’ strongest years.

And now the Giants face losing even more players. They seem to be heading down a path of having some high-priced stars (Kelly, Coniglio, and Whitfield), squeezing out the next tier (Hopper and Taranto), and then hoping for similar production from lower-priced players and rookies. Given that half a dozen inside midfield players cannot all attend the same centre bounce – a problem that plagued Leon Cameron’s tenure – this may not be a bad path to take. But it might be at least a couple of years yet before we see the Giants back challenging for a flag.