There are so many questions leaping out of the GWS win over Collingwood to commence their 2025 AFL seasons. Questions about the potential of the Giants, the fitness of the Magpies, the emerging stars, and those who looked to have faded just a little.
Yes, Round Zero may have failed to deliver on many levels, but there are stories aplenty coming out of this contest to end the tw0-game opening stanza of the season. Yeah… two games. Brilliant…
Anyway, what we saw in this contest was one team ready for the fight. The Giants were up for it right from the outset, and although some inaccurate kicking from Collingwood may have changed the complexion of the game in the first half, it quickly became evident that they were up against a team prepared to outwork and outrun them.
In boxing parlance, the Pies were against the ropes and just holding on.
And the Giants were taking some swings at them.
GWS looked like running machines, with young legs powering through the middle of the ground, and linking up via hand to create scoring opportuities, and it left Collingwood looking like the oldest team in the AFL, as a result.
The Giants broke a third-quarter deadlock with a running goal to Darcy Jones, and never looked back from that point on, cruising to a 52-point win on their home deck.
As always, The Mongrel dives deep into the contest and the stories within.
Let’s jump into The Big Questions stemming from the impressive Giants win.
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IS IT TIME FOR FINN CALLAGHAN?
Well, he was taken a pick before Nick Daicos for a reason, you know?
Just kidding – don’t have an aneurysm, Pies fans…
However, what we saw in this contest was the reason Finn was rated so highly, and why the Saints offered him a billion dollars to relocate to Moorabbin. He stuck with the Giants, and it is clear that he now sees himself as an integral part of this team.
His pace from stoppages was impressive. It was Chris Judd-like. I hate making those statements, but the way he was able to put distance between himself and his opponent within a couple of steps was incredible. He was just leaving them in his dust, and the opponents knew it to. The Giants were breaking the Pies, and Callaghan was breaking their hearts.
It wasn’t a career-high game for disposals, but for impact, this is the game where Callaghan announced himself to the AFL. In a standalone fixture, he picked up 32 disposals, kicked two goals, had 12 score involvements, and had seven clearances. That, my friends, is a serious game of football.
Callaghan has battled with a few injuries over his first few years in the league, but when you saw him in this game, he was covering the ground better than anyone else, taking the opposition on, following up his own work, and basically making the ageing Collingwood stars’ football mortality flash before their eyes. Maybe a couple on his own team, as well.
Just like Will Day’s first half against Sydney, Finn Callaghan was THE story out of this game, and this is the game that should catapult him to the next level.
He has now well and truly arrived. The competition is on notice.
WHAT WAS GOING ON WITH THE PIES’ FITNESS?
Well, it is going to be easy to blame old legs, and you know… it can also be a bit finny, too. We did it to Geelong for years, and they wore that badge with pride.
Will the Pies do the same?
I don’t think this is a case of putting a line through the Pies as too old and too slow – people have made that mistake time, and time again in footy. Yes, they looked underdone, but this team is likely looking at pushing harder as the season progresses. Hell… they wouldn’t want to push any softer, would they?
With older legs in the team, they don’t want players peaking at Round Zero and fading by the halfway point – they’re not Essendon, after all. No, they will work their way into the season, and ‘should’ be able to find the right balance.
On the flipside, Collingwood had a longer break than GWS, and yet, at halftime, we had three or four players cramping up. Lachie Whitfield did the same to open up the third quarter, but the number of Pies players that were simply trotting around the park was staggering (pardon the pun).
Both Daicos boys looked cooked. Steele Sidebottom and Scott Pendlebury were going up and down on the one spot. And Dan McStay could not get near it.
Really, the blokes I saw that were running hard were Jamie Elliott, Jeremy Howe, Beau McCreery, Harry Perryman, and… maybe Darcy Cameron.
The rest… they looked like they were in the fifth quarter for most of the game.
HAD THE GWS FORWARDS BEEN ABLE TO HOLD MARKS, HOW UGLY COULD THIS HAVE BEEN?
Not just any marks, mind you… chest marks!
Perhaps the support staff could introduce them to this substance that every other club uses called Grippo?
Callum Brown, who was excellent in every other facet of the game, simply could not control the footy in the air, even when it landed right on his chest. Aaron Cadman dropped chest marks. Max Gruzewski did the same, and they all did it inside the 50 metre zone.
Luckily, the Giants had fleet-footed crumbers at ground level, as well as midfielders outrunning their direct opponents to get to the drop of the footy first, so all-in-all, this wasn’t such a big deal.
Not in this game, anyway.
I liked the way Cadman and Brown attacked the footy. Without Jesse Hogan coming out of the goal square, there was always going to be a bit of pressure on them to contribute more, and they kept both Darcy Moore and Reef McInnes busy with continual presentation at the footy.
Sadly, it did not lead to scoreboard impact for Cadman, who missed two easy set shots on a day he would definitely love to have over again. Brown was able to butter up and slot two, whilst the Giants will be thrilled with getting two snags from Gruzewski, as well, but far out, this makeshift forward line had the chance of a lifetime to make a huge impact on this game, and they let it slip through their fingers, literally.
The next time they play, whack the grippo on, stick those marks, and put a team to the sword. Don’t give them a second chance.
IS A FIT SAM TAYLOR THE KEY TO 2025 FOR THE GIANTS?
Oh yes… he is bloody wonderful to watch, isn’t he?
He started this game like he’d been shot out of a cannon, taking four intercept grabs in the first quarter alone, and establishing himself as the premier defender in the game.
Is he the premier defender in the league?
There is a big bloke wearing Brisbane Lions colours that may have a thing or two to say about it, but when fit, Taylor sits right with him in the top two. And that’s what it comes down to in 2025.
The last two seasons, Taylor has had interrupted seasons. It has probably cost him All-Australian selections, and it has likely cost GWS games, as well. He just makes the entire defence walk taller.
Some of his marks in this one were of the highest quality – four were contested, and his 12 total intercepts were the highest for the game.
What I love most about Taylor is his passion. He takes a loss in a contest like it is a personal affront to him and his family. “You dare take a mark against me?”
The next time the ball comes back to that contest, he either kills it with force, or takes the footy as his own – he is the type of defender that every team would love; one who has the utmost pride in his work, and values the work of those around him so highly that any deficiency in his game makes him feel as though he has let them down.
What a player – he is captaincy material.
BEFORE HIS INJURY, WAS DAICOS BEATEN BY TOBY BEDFORD?
Yes, and I refuse to use nothing-stats as an argument against this.
Nick Daicos had seven touches in the first quarter – a fantastic output, if not all that fantastic by his own lofty standards. But when watching him, what I was really looking for was impact. You know what I mean – the slick handballs that set up a scoring play, the crafty inboard kick to find an open player, or the hard run to find a second possession on the overlap to open the game up. Those types of touches. Meaningful touches.
There was just the one like that in the first quarter, a nice handball out of traffic to a running teammate. Of the other six, five were deemed effective, but I counted none as being damaging. One out of seven disposals actually hurt.
And that is what makes Bedford’s role so bloody important!
Right from the outset, he was all over Daicos, offering the player many believe is the best in the game no space to move at stoppages. Daicos may have had 17 touches at the half, but he was unable to have influence on the game. His disposals were rushed, forced, and he started to struggle to get space.
People forget – Bedford is not just some failed forward pocket that turned into a tagger. No – he is an elite runner. He wins time trials in the preseason – he can flat out go! Daicos was never going to outrun him, and in trying to do so, he basically blew himself up.
I was quite amazed that Craig McRae opted to sub out Will Hoskin-Elliott, when Daicos was labouring so much. Part of me thought we’d end up seeing the young star with a torn calf or groin as a result, but he seemed to get through the game, despite just having four touches in the second half and zero influence.
So, was it effective?
You’re damn tootin’ it was. If you’re gonna get the best of the Giants, you’re going to have to work for it, and you’re going to have to go through Toby Bedford to do so.
If you get Snooze..
… you lose.
WHAT DOES THE KIEREN BRIGGS INJURY MEAN TO THE GIANTS?
Well, for this contest, it allowed Darcy Cameron to pick up a nice 20/20 game, with 22 disposals and 37 hit outs, and that gave the Pies a +4 clearance advantage.
Credit has to go to the GWS mids, though, as they scrambled well defensively to force what I call “dirty clearances”. Nothing was coming out the front of the stoppage for the Pies, which means they were sent backwards or wise, and it gave the Giants plenty of time to rally the troops.
However, the Gaints have the Dees in Round One (sounds dumb to say that, having just played), and Max Gawn feeding Clayton Oliver, Christian Petracca, and Jack Viney looms like a scary proposition. Lachie Keeffe battled hard, but Gawn will carve him up like a nice turkey breast if that is who the Giants have to go with.
This was something I was worried about in the pre-season, and addressed as part of our GWS season preview, and one game into the season, here we are.
Whilst we await the results of any tests for Briggsy (I did see him sitting up at the hospital watching the game on his phone), fingers crossed he is out there very quickly. The club needs him.
DID THE GIANTS GET THE JOSH KELLY BALANCE RIGHT?
I genuinely believe that Josh Kelly could be the best wingman in the league if he was permitted to play there, and stay there.
However, he has just been so good in so many roles over the journey, that the temptation to swing him into the midfield becomes too much. It was too much for Leon Cameron, who refused to persist, and it looks like it could be too much for Adam Kingsley, as well, who started Kelly on the wing in this one, but switched him into the guts pretty quickly.
His clean hands, and his ability to hit target both by hand and foot made him an invaluable link man for the Giants in this one. As Finn Callaghan provided the powerful run and carry, it was often JK with his quick hands that kept the ball rolling for Callaghan to receive in the open.
He’s been called the ‘Rolls Royce’ over the journey, and has continually turned his nose up at the overtures of Victorian teams who have tried to turn his head. There are plenty of reasons to want to see the Giants succeed in this league – I have great admiration for the way this club goes about it – but rewarding players like Kelly, Coniglio, and Toby Greene, who have made this place their own, is the main reason I’d like to see this club rewarded.
Kelly was brilliant in this one.
WAS IT NICE TO HEAR HARRY PERRYMAN BEING BOOED BY GWS FANS?
Yeah, it was, and not just for the GWS fans to rub it in – it meant that he was getting plenty of the footy. In truth, he was probably the most impressive of the Collingwood side, appearing in control and poised in what was basically a sea of chaotic ball movement and poor skills from the Pies.
I’ve always viewed Perryman as someone who is a “plug and play” type of player. He doesn’t need an instruction manual to work him out – just put him where you need him and he’ll do his job.
He was solid in this one, without being spectacular – this is who he is. This is what he is.
If you thought he was going to be a star at Collingwood, you’re gravely mistaken, but what he will be is a solid contributor every week, and he delivered, as advertised, this week.
SHOULD THE PIES STOP FIXING WHAT IS NOT BROKEN?
I listened to the pre-game on Fox Footy with interest, as Jordan Lewis and Nathan Buckley discussed the merits of moving Josh Daicos to half-back to provide run and carry.
The theory is understandable, as it is something the Pies really lacked in 2024.
And when you look at numbers alone, you mod your head and say “well, he had 28 touches… that worked,” right?
For most people, yeah, but what really did Daicos provide there? Any gut-busting run? ANy line-breaking? Any powerful moments where he took the footy and laced it out to a player to open the game up?
Nup, to all three.
He was like a mountain – he was just… there.
Meanwhile, the Pies had Pat Lipinski on the wing, and he was busy doing a whole heap of nothing, being pantsed early by Josh Kelly, and then neaten by both Cal Ward and Jacob Wehr.
After beating up on a bunch of kids in the AAMI series, and grabbing himself 37 disposals in the process, Lipinski was completely found out in this one. He was second to the footy, slow, and messy. He finished the first half with four disposals in a clear indication that as long as he is playing in a scratch match, or against teens, he will be fine, but when the real stuff starts, he is a complementary player, and nothing more.
He rallied after half time to finish with 17 touches, but the first half demonstrated who he is.
When Dan Houston rejoins this team, it is time for Josh Daicos to move back to the wing, where he has been arguably the best player in the role for three-straight seasons, and for the Pies to stop screwing around with what is working, and start addressing what is not.
QUICKIES
I really liked the look of Max Gruzewski, and after pointing out his dropped chest marks, I wanted to make sure I said that. His aerial contests were fantastic, and that is something you cannot teach. Blokes like Josh Treacy and Jacob van Rooyen attack the footy like that. Logan Morris at Brisbane, as well. That is EXACTLY what you want to see from a developing forward.
The best forward for Collingwood? Well, they didn’t get a ton of opportunity via great ball delivery, but Brody Mihocek always makes his own luck, and Jamie Elliott was slippery enough to get loose here and there. Bobby Hill was… I don’t want to say cheap, because his role is to get out and find cheap footy, but he seemed like he was happy to run hard toward goal. No so hard away from it. Dan McStay was well-beaten and only looked half-decent as a relief ruck. And Lachie Schultz… well, his highlight was being put down by Toby Greene.
Speaking of Toby – he had an ‘almost’ game. He looks strong – looks to have added some real definition, and his body shape has changed a bit. He was a couple of straight kicks away from a big game. Still, that chase down tackle on Tim Membrey in the last quarter sends a strong message as to where his head is at coming into this season. Premiership captain… sounds good, huh?
Loved Stephen Coniglio’s tackle on Nick Daicos in the first quarter. Hard and fair, and it demonstrated great support to the role Bedford was playing. Cogs as a resting forward is a good option. He has clean hands and good vision.
Also loved the aggression from Xavier O’Halloran. His hip and shoulder on Lipinski was nice.
Darcy Jones was the game breaker when the game was deadlocked in the third. If you get a chance to look at it again, watch how he puts distance between him and the Pies as soon as they break the Magpies’ defensive line. He is gone!
Mentioned Callum Brown’s butterfingers, earlier, but his recovery is excellent. Doesn’t lose his feet often, and his first few strides after changing direction generate a heap of power.
I hate bringing this up, but I reckon someone will – after dishing a handball in the fourth quarter, Toby Greene raised a knee – it looked like he was trying to protect himself, but it did cause Reef McInnes to clutch at his midsection. I hope it was nothing, I really do… but I always hope that with Toby. And I am always left disappointed. Anyway, fingers crossed it just flitters away into nothingness, and we concentrate on next week, right?
Right!
And that might do me, lovely people. This was an impressive win for the Giants, and flags their intentions very early.
As for the Pies… well, I have given them the benefit of the doubt this early. Yes, they were not good, but this is a marathon, not a sprint. And really, could they get much worse than this?
As always, massive thanks to those who support this work. You can see the amount of care that goes into it. I love footy, I love writing about it, and I hope you enjoy reading it. Without you, this whole thing falls over. Sincerely… thank you – HB
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