With a nod to Humans of New York, we meet some of our diehard GIANTS supporters as part of #MembersWeek

SARAH MORGAN

Hawkesbury

I grew up in Blacktown, but I was never a sports follower. I just wasn’t interested at all. My husband comes from Leichhardt, and he’s always been a staunch NRL man and a staunch Tigers fan. He used to play, and when he spent some time in Melbourne he even found a team down there to play for, that’s how into it he was.

But three years ago our son Flyn was looking for an under-9 sports team to play for and we looked at each other and thought ‘oh, I don’t know about the NRL’. We had friends who were into AFL, so we took him down to the Hawkesbury Saints and it all started from there. He loved to play, and when players from the GIANTS would come down to talk to the boys it made us think, 'we should go and watch them play'.

Now, I’m the most obsessed member of the household. I love going to games. We have some really good friends who have been staunch supporters from day one. We have merchandise coming out our ears and my husband and I drove down on the Friday before the grand final after we found standing room tickets and just loved seeing all that orange. I find the game easier to follow in real life than NRL: it’s fast paced and just so good to watch.

Toby Greene is my hero. I started helping train Flyn’s team in his second year at Hawkesbury, we have a couple of girls in the team, and one of them is a little gun. Toby came down one night to the kids train and he turned to me and said, ‘she’s one to keep an eye on’.

The team is so accessible, and they’re right in our backyard. They’ve had everything thrown at them, that they’re the “feeder club” for the rest of the competition, but our players obviously love the club and what it stands for like we do, because they want to play here.

Last year was such a huge year – Flyn’s team won the under-11 grand final too – so we were looking forward to this year so much. Things are coming together, the fire is there for this team and I don’t care when the players get back or whether they have to play behind closed doors, as long as they get to do what they love I’ll be happy to watch on TV and barrack for them however I can and as loud as I can. It’s been an amazing few years.