Geelong premiership captain Cameron Ling addressed the young Greater Western Sydney GIANTS side after their first game at Skoda Stadium on Saturday night.

Ling spoke to the GIANTS in the rooms after their 66 point loss to Essendon about his early years at Geelong and what is required to achieve success.

“We always had this belief that if we were being taught the right way of playing footy we would continue to improve,” Ling said. “Every training session that we did, we just got better and better.

“Everyone talks about those five years and how we almost coached ourselves but all the hard work was done in the six or seven years leading up to that.

“We played against the great Brisbane team in the early 2000’s and a couple of times we felt like we were little boys playing against men.

“We knew that if we stuck to the way that we wanted to play and the way that we were training to play that eventually we’d start bashing those teams up. Those five years were pretty special for me and for the group.

The GIANTS have impressed many people, including Essendon coach James Hird,  in their inaugural AFL season with their tough, contested brand of football and Ling is no exception.

“I love what I see in so many of you guys because you show the glimpses of playing footy in the right way: hard, contested, ruthless, defensive footy and that is the type of footy that stands up in finals.

“The challenge now is to keep working on it until you can do it for entire games and you can do it week after week after week,” he said.

“Essendon is a big, strong team, they wear you down but we felt exactly the same thing.

“You’re going to feel like you’re not getting anywhere at times and you’re going to feel like your confidence is down but you just need to trust me that if you keep sticking to it and you keep consistently working on what you need to work on that you will get there.

“There will be doubts at times but trust me, stick to it. You get to have a bloody enjoyable time on the back of all that hard work. It might take years but you will get there.”

By Rebecca Mills