Defender Louise Stephenson and midfielder Jodie Hicks return to the GIANTS line-up as coach Alan McConnell looks for more mobility when his side takes on Collingwood on Sunday afternoon.
The final 21-person squad was finalised on Friday with Stephenson and Hicks recalled for Maddie Boyd and Renee Tomkins (omitted).
Maddy Collier and Pippa Smyth, who were both named in the extended squad on Thursday, are the emergencies for Sunday’s showdown at Olympic Park Oval.
“We’re looking to be a bit more mobile so we’re a bit smaller than we have been,” McConnell said.
“We’re looking to be a bit more mobile and have a bit more variety in the way we move the ball this week.”
Despite a disappointing showing against Carlton last Friday night, McConnell said it wasn’t a reaction to last week’s loss.
“Interestingly we discussed having a bit more variety in our ball movement before the Carlton game,” he said.
“The weather had implications for our ability to do that in the first half but then when the conditions improved in the second half we actually got worse, not better and there were ample opportunities.
“It’s both a development opportunity and a response to what we did last week. That said, we’ve gone from eighth in the competition for contested ball to second.
“There’s a lot to be encouraged by and all we’re simply saying is we need to have a bit more uncontested ball but not at the expense of being good around the contest. That’s it in a nutshell.”
Despite two losses to start the season, McConnell is choosing to take the optimistic approach.
“We can look at this as glass half-empty or glass half-full,” he said.
“It was a disappointing result last week but if you look at our trial game and performance in round one against Melbourne, who are obviously in very good form, if you look at over the journey our form’s pretty good but if you look at it in isolation it’s doom and gloom.
“We we fortunate in that we were able to do our review on Saturday so we were able to put to bed the challenges that came out of the Friday game pretty quickly.
“We’ve had a couple of good sessions this week and we look forward to a captain’s run tomorrow before we fly to Melbourne.”
The GIANTS head to Olympic Park Oval to take on Collingwood in round three from 4:35pm on Sunday afternoon with live coverage on Fox Footy, AFL.com.au and the GIANTS’ social media accounts.
