GREATER Western Sydney celebrated its inaugural AFL match on Saturday night, but the Sydney Swans spoiled the party with a resounding 63-point win at ANZ Stadium.
The Swans were made to work hard early to secure bragging rights over their new cross-town rivals, but set up the 14.16 (100) to 5.7 (37) win in front of 38,203 fans with a five-goals-to-nil third quarter.
Kieren Jack and Josh Kennedy were the architects of the win with 30 and 27 possessions respectively, but there were plenty of positives to be found for the Giants with Tomas Bugg (29 disposals) and Toby Greene (27) chief among them.
Giants coach Kevin Sheedy was thrilled with the spirit shown by his side.
"The thing that we found out today is that this team has got a bit of spirit," Sheedy said after the game.
"We had three guys who couldn't come back on the ground because they were cramped and we may have luckily just outscored them in the last quarter, which was terrific."
Gold Coast trailed by 52 points after the first quarter of its painful AFL debut against Carlton last year, but this season's new boys avoided the same fate, despite widely held fears of a swift and brutal initiation leading to an inevitable blowout.
Granted, the older heads in Chad Cornes and James McDonald - who laid a bone-crunching bump on Luke Parker in the first term - provided the backbone for the Giants, but youngsters like Jacob Townsend and Bugg also showed plenty of courage when the heat was on early.
The Swans led by 17 points at the first break, after Callan Ward had written his name into the history books as the first Giants player to kick a goal, but they looked about to shake loose their upstart neighbours early in the second when Ben McGlynn put the margin out to 31 points.
GWS answered that challenge with successive goals, through Nathan Wilson and Will Hoskin-Elliott, as they attacked their task with vigour.
But after that bright period the Swans regained their composure - and control of the game - with Shane Mumford's late goal restoring a 31-point buffer.
Sheedy was thrilled with what he saw in the first half, but the second half was much more to counterpart John Longmire's liking.
"I thought we were fumbling a little bit around the ball and we were giving away too many free kicks [in the first half]," Longmire said.
"I've been watching [the Giants] over the past month and so it didn't surprise me at all [that GWS would come out firing].
"We knew it was going to be a bit of a battle."
In the third quarter Jack and Kennedy found another gear through the middle as the Swans set up shop in their forward half where Lewis Jetta provided the magic with two of his side's five goals in succession.
On a night of firsts for the Giants, the umpires joined the party with Matt Stevic calling for a video review of a Jack shot that was shown to have shaved the post on the way through.
But it was a small mercy for the Giants who retreated into their shells in the face of repeated forward thrusts from Swans.
With 17 debutants in their inaugural team, the Giants were in danger of a complete capitulation 64 points down going into the final term, but to their credit, they dug deep and actually won their first quarter of football in the AFL by one point.
GWS poster child Israel Folau endured a torrid welcome to his adopted sport and finished with three disposals and seven hit-outs, but Sheedy was largely unconcerned.
"[Gavin] Wanganeen couldn't find the footy in his few weeks and went on and won the Brownlow Medal in the same year," Sheedy said.
"You just don't know how a person of his calibre and talent will eventually learn the game.
"It does take a while and we're going to go through that. We've got to go through it."
Greater Western Sydney 1.2 3.3 3.4 5.7 (37)
Sydney Swans 4.1 8.4 13.8 14.16 (100)
GOALS
Greater Western Sydney: Ward, Wilson, Giles, Hoskin-Elliott, McDonald
Sydney Swans: Kennedy, Bird, Jetta 2, McVeigh, Everitt, Jack, Rohan, McGlynn, Bolton, Roberts-Thomson, Mumford
BEST
Greater Western Sydney: Palmer, Bugg, Greene, Hampton, McDonald, Cornes
Sydney Swans: Jack, Kennedy, McGlynn, Jetta, Bird, Bolton
INJURIES
Greater Western Sydney: TBA
Sydney Swans: TBA
SUBSTITUTES
Greater Western Sydney: Dylan Shiel replaced by Dom Tyson in the third quarter.
Sydney Swans: Luke Parker replaced by Harry Cunningham in the third quarter.
Reports: Nil
Umpires: Stevic, Meredith, Mollison
Official crowd: 38,203 at ANZ Stadium
The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the AFL or its clubs
