Greater Western Sydney have been torched for an “attitude” problem during their thrilling loss to St Kilda on Saturday afternoon.
In a match that was delayed for close to an hour due to lightning around Engie Stadium, the Giants got off to a nightmare start and left their run too late as the Saints held on for a four-point victory.
GWS kicked the first goal of the match, but the Saints responded with the next five to take control. It was the ease in which they scored that raised alarm bells in the Giants coaches’ box.
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Adam Kingsley could be seen going crazy on the stroke of quarter-time as they coughed up the fifth goal.
It was much of the same in the second term as the Saints pushed their lead out to 32 points, which prompted a scathing assessment from AFL great Jason Dunstall.
“It’s very attitudinal for me for a lot of things I am seeing at the moment,” he said on Fox Footy.
“I don’t think they are working hard enough. I don’t think the attitude or the mindset is right at the moment.
“They are getting punished.”
“This is one-way traffic.
“We are seeing a lack of discipline, we’re seeing mistakes, we’re seeing a lack of effort.
“This is unexpected from the Giants.”
Speaking during the half-time break, Kingsley promised a big response.
“Disappointing. I thought for the first quarter and a half, we just failed to win the ball. They supported their contest players really well and we didn’t,” he said.
“You’ll see our hunt, we’ll get after the ball and stick our tackles better than what we have, we’ll get our hands of ball, we need to tidy up centre bounce.”
To players’ credit, they did lift in the third term, and began to dominate the game.
But despite racking up 23 inside 50s to just eight, they failed to make an impact on the scoreboard as they only kicked two goals, which was matched by the Saints thanks to Liam Ryan’s brilliant snap late on.
The last quarter was much of the same as the Giants piled on the pressure, but couldn’t land the killer blow up forward.
When Mason Wood nailed a difficult goal to put the Saints up by 22 points, it looked game over before the Giants kicked two in a minute to set up a grandstand finish.
Jesse Hogan kicked a goal with less than 30 seconds left, but time ran out as the Saints successfully defended one final inside 50 to hold on for victory.
More to come …