Harry Himmelberg says he's ready to "take control" of a Greater Western Sydney forward line that will operate without Jeremy Cameron for the first time in its history.
Like many of his teammates, Himmelberg was below his best in 2020, and says he's used the down year to fuel him through a strong pre-season.
How the GIANTS fill the void left by the departure of Cameron – their games (171) and goals (427) record holder – is one of many questions facing Leon Cameron's team entering 2021.
Whether to play two talls or three is something the coach is still wrestling with, as Himmelberg, 2020 revelation Jake Riccardi, enigmatic Jeremy Finalyson and recently injured recruit Jesse Hogan (quad) all vie for spots.
Ask almost anyone at GWS' Homebush training base and the word "unpredictable" pops out when asked about the new forward line and where goals might come from.
Himmelberg agrees.
"You don't like losing your good players, but it creates an opportunity for other guys," he told AFL.com.au.
"Toby (Greene) has been in and out with injury the last couple of years and he's done a full pre-season now and looks like he's come out the other sides of those setbacks.
"It opens the door for guys like Toby, myself, and Jake Riccardi, who really came through last year, to assert ourselves as good forwards.
"Brent Daniels … he impacted at big moments in games last year.
"I think there's plenty more positives than negatives with losing personnel."
The GIANTS started well, kicking 18 goals in an AAMI Community Series win over Sydney on Sunday, with Himmelberg and Greene kicking three goals apiece and draftee Tanner Bruhn, four.
Still just 24 years old, Himmelberg will shoulder the load in Cameron's absence. At his best, he's an excellent contested mark and hard worker up and down the ground.
Following a strong 2019 in which he kicked 38 goals from 25 games, he admitted to not dealing with the changing face of 2020 all that well.
"I've had lots of conversations with a lot of people, there's no other way of putting it - I need to step up and take control," he said.
"My leadership is something that has ebbed and flowed, but it's going to have to be pretty consistent with Toby in the forward line.
"I think we'll be a dangerous forward line across the board.
"I feel like it was a down year, a year wasted for myself because I thought I was building really well.
"I've used that to fuel me through my off-season, I trained really hard through that, and the pre-season as well.
"I'm pretty keen to bounce back and show what I can do again this year."
The 194cm product from Wagga Wagga said his mindset had changed since the end of last season.
"You can go two ways when you have a bad game let alone a bad year - you can feel sorry for yourself and blame everything, you can blame the hubs and blame your teammates and blame all this stuff, but at the end of the day it's only you that can fix it.
"It was pretty much shifting into the mindset that I needed to be better.
"I want to get back to where we were in 2019 as far as team success, I want to play in a Grand Final again.
"It's bloody hard to get to a Grand Final and it's even harder to win one as we found out.
"I just really want another opportunity at that."
