What are the GWS Giants all about?
They look like they have an identity crisis.
They also are in dire need of a compass.
Or maybe they’re just in denial, as a sports guru friend of mine, Sylvester, would say.
Why do they need a compass? To work how on earth Skoda Stadium at Sydney Olympic Park is in anyway shape or form part of western Sydney. It simply isn’t.
They call Blacktown International Sports park their home. They train there and play trial games at the venue. They also did play a premiership game there earlier in the season.
But GWS have made it plain and clear they play almost all their home games at Skoda Stadium which sits smack, back in the middle of Sydney Olympic Park Showground.
The NSW Government even forked out about $45 million on facilities improvements, wasting the taxpayers’ money to help a cashed up AFL-funded enterprise with a new playing arena. Yes, true the showground is also used during Sydney Royal Easter Show time, but it is primarily used throughout the year by GWS.
Sydney Olympic Park is a 30 minute drive to Blacktown and just as long a train ride. A long trip for their fans from the west. They are being dudded.
The GWS claim that they are a western suburbs club is a con job - they just about do everything with one eye on the glistening waters of Sydney Harbour.
But both the club and the AFL forget that the sporting public aren’t stupid and won’t buy the smoke and mirrors approach.
If this is a fair dinkum western suburbs club, why do public relations stuff like game promotions are staged on the steps of the Opera House instead of in their own backyard where their supposed catchment area is at Blacktown or even in Liverpool, or Campbelltown, Penrith, Fairfield and so on.
If they’re not careful, GWS Giants will become the dwarfs of the Sydney sporting landscape.
When they arrived in western sydney preparing for their entry into the AFL four years ago, they shouted loudly from the rooftops they were to be ‘‘western Sydney’s team.’’
Their coffers were full of cash from the AFL. I am told from very reliable contacts in the sport, the AFL Commission and hierarchy forked out $100 million to set up the new club.
They paid big dollars to find, recruit and sign and then relocate players from interstate.
They paid four-time grand final winning coach, Essendon’s master mentor, Kevin Sheedy, a treasure chest for him to do the job. That’s because they needed a coach with pulling power and a man who could be recognised and spread the gospel of the game in such a sports mad and highly competitive market. A coach with a lesser profile wouldn’t have worked.
GWS arrived ready to conquer the rugby league and soccer heartland of western Sydney. More than that, they challenged the AFL supremacy of the Sydney Swans.
Big mistake, fellas: Swans supporters are like a family, they stick solid and don’t walk away. When the Swans won the AFL grand final last season against Hawthorn, it buried the GWS Giants for two decades in my view.
GWS’ biggest rivals are the Sydney Swans and the Wanderers.
The emergence of the western suburbs soccer club last year diverted rivers of marketing and sponsorship dollars from GWS.
Big companies have flocked to the Wanderers and NRMA has jumped on board again as major sponsor for a long term deal.
The Wanderers won the A-League premiership and were beaten in the grand final by Central Coast Mariners, but along the way thousands of people turned out at their games at Parramatta Stadium. A western Sydney venue.
The Wanderers are here to stay.
GWS on the other are still winless this season.
They play their arch rivals Sydney Swans in the local derby, at the Sydney Cricket Ground this weekend and another flogging is on the cards.
This after the club boast of a semis appearance inside the first five years.
I hardly see any GWS Giants jerseys being worn around Sydney’s southwest and western Sydney areas, and to me that tells the story, despite the club’s official figures on membership.
I am sure they do have their share of fans and their official membership figures on their website claim to be more than 12,000.
The late and great rugby league coach Jack Gibson always said: ‘‘Wining starts in the front office.’’
GWS Giants management could well take note.
They could also take note of what my mate Sylvester says of GWS: they need a big, fat reality check if they want to make it in Sydney’s western suburbs.
GWS Giants, time to take another look at a map of Sydney
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