No less than seven GIANTS players posted career-best numbers as the AFL’s youngest club had an historic win over colloquially the oldest club in the country last Sunday.

As the post-mortems of the Giants’ 64-point win over Melbourne at the MCG continue the club statisticians have been busily updating individual records that came out of the club’s biggest ever win and their first win in Victoria.

Tomas Bugg headed the list with a career-best 33 possessions in his 47th game, while Rhys Palmer kicked a career-best four goals in his 94th game.

Josh Kelly (27 possessions), Adam Tomlinson (24), Mark Whiley (19), Nathan Wilson (18) and second-gamer James Stewart (12) also posted numbers that sit at the top of their personal best lists.

And Jono O’Rourke almost did likewise when he had 19 possessions after posting a career-best 21 possessions against North Melbourne a week earlier. 

The GIANTS collectively just missed a club record, too. The team possession count against the Demons of 399 was the second-highest in GWS history behind only the Round 12 game in 2012 when, in what will always be something of an anomaly, they had 414 possessions in a 120-point loss to Collingwood at Spotless Stadium.

Bugg became the 14th GIANTS player to have 30 possessions in a game. He joins a list which is headed by Callan Ward, with 14 30-possession games, Toby Greene (13) and Adam Treloar (10).

Others to have reached 30 for the GIANTS have been Tom Scully (3), Lachie Whitfield, Dylan Shiel, Devon Smith and Luke Power (2), Taylor Adams, Stephen Coniglio, Chad Cornes, Curtly Hampton and Heath Shaw. (1).

Bugg’s 33-possession game against the Demons was the GIANTS’ second-biggest at the MCG behind Greene’s 34 possessions against Hawthorn in a hefty loss in 2012.

Ward (32), Whitfield (32), Hampton (31), Smith (31 on Sunday) and Treloar (30) also have topped this mark at ‘headquarters’.

Similarly, Palmer’s four goals on Sunday was the GIANTS’ equal second-best at the MCG.

Setanta O’hAilpin kicked five goals against Melbourne there in 2013, while Smith bagged four against Hawthorn at the venue in Round 11 this year.

The GIANTS’ 64-point win surpassed the 45-point win over Brisbane at the Gabba in Round 13 to become the biggest in the club’s brief history.

But just as pleasing for coach Leon Cameron was a range of new line items in the defensive pages of the club record books.

Melbourne’s total of 3.16 (34) on Sunday was the lowest recorded against the GIANTS in 64 games, while their 1.7 (13) second half was the second-lowest individual half ever score against the GIANTS. 

Only Melbourne’s 1.5 (11) in the first half against the GIANTS at Spotless in Round 3 this year has seen a better team defensive effort.

Also, the Demons’ 0-2 third quarter on Sunday was the equal lowest single-quarter score ever posted against the GIANTS. And it was the first time in club history the GIANTS have twice held the opposition to goalless quarters in the same game, having also restricted the home side to 0-5 in the second quarter.

Coming from behind at quarter-time, it was the second time in club history that the GIANTS have won three quarters in a row, matching the effort when they won the second, third and fourth quarters against Sydney in this year’s season-opener at Spotless.

Significantly, after winning 13 quarters in 2012 and 19 quarters in 2013 the GIANTS already have won 24 quarters this year, with still two games to play.

Similarly, after winning just one half in 2012 and five halves in 2013 they have won 11 halves this year.

The 139-point aggregate turnaround on Sunday after a 75-point loss to North Melbourne in Canberra in Round 20 was the second-biggest in GIANTS history, beaten only by the 154-point differential when they beat Port Adelaide at Spotless in Round 19 2012 after losing by 120 points to Collingwood at the same venue a week earlier.

The GIANTS’ overall percentage has climbed from a League-low 46.2 per cent in 2012 and a League-low 51 per cent in 2013 to 74.08 per cent in 2014 - superior to Brisbane, Melbourne and St Kilda.

But perhaps the most positive pointer to the future to emerge from Sunday’s breakout win was the experience in the side. Or more particularly, the experience not in the side.

Prior to the match against Melbourne the entire GWS playing list boasted a combined 2002 AFL games. But with such a high injury and absentee toll the side that coach Cameron sent into battle had just 1072 or that. He left almost as much experience in the dressing rooms.

And when co-captains Ward and Davis and Patton went down they lost 20 per cent of that.

Among the 19 players who walked off the ground at the end of a win that will forever be remembered in GIANTS history only Shaw (189 games), Shane Mumford (115) and Palmer (94) had played more than 60 games. And they were the only players older than 22.

Eight of 19 victorious players hadn’t even played 20 games.