AFL Rankings: Round 19 2023

 

It’s the sound of the mightier Giants

The GWS Giants had a relatively poor season in 2022, which resulted in them parting ways with long-time coach Leon Cameron. On the ladder, they were the lowest team other than North Melbourne and West Coast.

As I write this however the Giants are actually sitting in the top eight, with ten wins from eighteen matches, including six wins in a row. Their recent form is even better than their ladder position and ranking suggest. Until their recent winning streak, three of their four wins had been by less than eight points, and they were the only team this season to lose to West Coast. In contrast their past six wins – albeit mostly against lower-ranked sides – have come at an average winning margin of 28 points.

The Giants gained a reputation under Leon Cameron, at least in his earlier years for being a team that relied on winning stoppages. From 2016 to their Grand Final appearance in 2019 they ranked in the top three each year for clearance differential. After that, they dropped away a bit and in 2022 only finished thirteenth. Some teams can counter losses at the stoppages by winning intercepts, but the Giants have been even weaker in intercept differential, finishing in the bottom three in each of the past two seasons.

However, along has come new coach Adam Kingsley, who has experience in winning the post-clearance contests from his time as an assistant coach at Richmond. Kingsley currently has the Giants ranked eighth for intercept differential, including over +10 in two of their past three matches. Leading the way is Sam Taylor, with over ten per game and more than one per game better than anyone else in the league, while returning defender Jack Buckley also ranks in the league’s top 20.

The Giants still rank low for clearance differential, but essentially aren’t much different from last year in this area. This is despite the departures of Tim Taranto and Jacob Hopper, who are off winning stoppages for the previously mentioned Tigers. Filling the gap have been Tom Green and Josh Kelly, alongside ruck Kieran Briggs, who have formed a tighter inside midfield combination than the ‘midfield-by-committee’ run – whether by choice or personnel (or both) – by Cameron.

GWS now comes into a tougher stretch of games to finish the season off, starting with arch-rival the Western Bulldogs this week, and finishing with fellow finals aspirants Essendon and Carlton. Whether they eventually make the final eight, after a slow start to the season, may be touch‑and‑go. Either way though, the Giants’ prospects look brighter heading towards the end of the season than they did heading into it.