The Greater Western Sydney GIANTS have defeated the Tuggeranong Hawks by 26 points today in a physical clash, as the young guns storm towards the NEAFL finals series with three wins in a row.
The GIANTS were dominant in the first half of the match, with a strong midfield working for the majority of the clearances and Curtly Hampton booting five goals.
Dylan Shiel and Sam Darley racked up 37 possessions each with 12 individual goal scorers converting the side’s efforts on the scoreboard.
Tasmanian GIANT Sam Darley was named best on ground today after being given the GIANTS rotating captaincy for the first time.
“About 10 minutes before today’s game Sheeds came over to me and told me that I was going to be captain.
“To be honest I was a bit nervous to start with but I just took it on and used it as an incentive to play a captains game for the team.
“I’m quite pleased, you can’t be unhappy with 37 touches. I think that was my best game. I’ve been gradually improving over the last six weeks since I moved to halfback.”
A comfortable 48-point lead at half time allowed a number of GIANTS players to be moved in to unfamiliar positions on the field, offering the young side another valuable learning experience on the road to their AFL debut in 2012.
Darley commended the side’s efforts in the first half and said that the change in momentum in the third and fourth quarters was due to a drop in the GIANTS intensity.
“I thought that the first half was particularly good, both personally and from a team perspective.
“We kicked 19 goals 18 so we had 37 shots at goal. We’ve played a good game of football, especially at the beginning but our accuracy let us down.”
Darley said that whilst finals are fast approaching, the squad still has a number of important clashes to focus on before a GIANT finals campaign.
“We really want to focus on these last few games. We’ve got NT Thunder and the Gold Coast away, which are two massive games for us.
“We beat the SUNS last time so I think that they will be pretty keen to beat us on their home turf.
“We went to Darwin a while ago to play NT Thunder and they gave us a bit of a touch up so we’re keen to have another crack at them next week. We know that if we play our style of football we can beat them.”
Tuggeranong
17.5.107
GWS GIANTS
19.19.133
Bests
Darley, Cameron, Hampton, Shiel, Hombsch, Aylett
GIANTS goal kickers
Curtly Hampton 5
Dylan Shiel 2
Jeremy Cameron 2
Ben Reid 2
Alex Carey
Adam Flagg
Josh Bruce
Jonathan Giles
Kurt Aylett
Anthony Miles
Adam Treloar
Nathan Wilson
Reports
Rhys Cooyou
