Can GWS be a Big Big Deal in 2025?

Can GWS be a Big Big Deal in 2025?

GuyWhoLikesSport

Mac from It’s Always Sunny said it best: Science is a liar sometimes.

Science was a liar last year about GWS.

I saw the most talent rich team playing the most interesting footy in the AFL.

They defended like they had the best defenders stationing Sam Taylor, Connor Idun, and Jack Buckley on islands so everyone else could run in a way that would make Coach Carter proud.

When they moved the ball, their tsunami was scary and when they got the ball inside 50 they were as dangerous as anyone with Hogan, Greene, and Daniels.

Despite the way that they ran, this wasn’t a pure outside team. They were strong at the coalface with beasts like Tom Green leading the charge.

On a personnel level, they had their stars around the ground while their high half-forward factory unearthed new players like Darcy Jones and refashioned older players like Toby Bedford into new roles.

I saw a contender.

Were they?

The premiership metrics said that GWS was the tenth-best team last year.

Despite having the best forward line in football, GWS was seventh in points.

Despite having three of the 12 best defenders, GWS was 9th in opposition points.

For 2025, which is it?

Is it the team that I saw play the best footy and have the best players?

Or are the numbers right and this team was mediocre?

I feel like I did when I watched Kendall Roy rap. Despite everything, I thought it was good.

Take the scoring. Despite GWS being seventh for points, their best was elite. Scoring 100 or more nine times.

The issue was their fluctuations.

They scored over 100 in five of their first seven games and 98 in a sixth, winning six.

Then they dropped off badly in the middle of the year, winning just two of their next eight and scoring over 80 twice.

Then they got better again, scoring over 100 three times in their last seven games and winning all of them to close the year before a meaningless loss to the Bulldogs.

Then they lost two classic finals.

The scoring was microcosmic of the whole year. It was a season of “just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”

The 2024 Giants were like when you date the girl that’s up and down. She’s great, then she slashes your tyre, then she buys you a new car and on and on it goes until she sleeps with someone else…twice.

The finals should have been the last straw, but now I’m here making Stu from The Hangover excuses and I’m in again.

Despite the fluctuations, if you dig a bit you can see two truths about GWS that are reasons for optimism in 2025:
1. Their good players are good, and
2. Their inconsistency can be cured with an emphasis tweak.

Let’s start with the first.

GWS was second at retaining the ball when they kicked it inside 50 and third in goals per inside 50.

While some of that is that they went inside 50 rarely for an elite team – 11th – they still have elite ball retention players.

They have the two best high half forwards in football either kicking it inside 50 or on the receiving end of the ball in Greene and Daniels.

Then they have the best mark inside 50 player in Hogan as well as elite kicks like Coniglio and Kelly.

Defensively the picture is the same. While they were mediocre in terms of scoring defence, they were elite in the rate stats sitting second for the fewest goals allowed per inside 50.

This is particularly impressive given they gave up the third most inside 50s.

They need an emphasis tweak.

The Giants are efficient but were too reliant on efficiency. Having to make the most of every opportunity while making sure your opponent can’t is a hard way to live.

If they structurally prioritise territory and field position, their players are so good that the rate stats shouldn’t drop with more volume.

More volume should just make them more reliable.

If I were Kingsley, I’d take a page from my old mentor Damien Hardwick’s book and start coaching for territory.

Even with Gold Coast, Hardwick’s pressure inside 50 and high defensive line meant that the Suns were sixth in inside 50 differential at +3.

GWS was 14th at -4.

In 2023 they about broke even at +1.2, ninth in footy. They can do it.

Beyond that, in 2023 GWS top six in scores from forward half and from turnover.

In 2024, they were top-6 in neither.

Obviously, Kingsley doesn’t care about territory as much Hardwick or Vladimir Putin do, but he has to care more than he did in 2024.

If they can improve their field-position game, science won’t need to lie about their contendership.

 

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