GWS Giants v Sydney Swans: Young players won’t rely on talent to succeed

THE young stars at the Swans and Giants know premierships, clubs and derbies are built on tougher stuff than what your daddy gave you.

Jacob Hopper and Callum Mills are a crop of bright young talent at GWS and Sydney. Picture: John Appleyard

“YOU can’t feel proud of talent,” AFL doyen Ron Barassi once said.

“That’s something you got from your old man.”

This famous quote has become the mantra for the GWS Giants under coach Leon Cameron, and it’s the benchmark by which the exciting young stars over at the Sydney Swans have also judged themselves.

Isaac Heeney and Jack Steele are among the young crop who want to be known for the hard work they put in. Picture: Phil Hillyard

The most scintillating thing about Sunday’s Sydney derby blockbuster at Olympic Park is that this is only the beginning.

There is so much natural ability at both the Swans and Giants that this is almost certain to be a rivalry that has its best and most explosive years ahead of it.

Not only that, many of these household names of the future are NSW born and bred — products young kids and fans can properly identify with.

But these are proud young men who don’t want to be defined by their talent.

The likes of Josh Kelly, Jacob Hopper and Jack Steele from the Giants and Callum Mills, Isaac Heeney and Tom Papley from the Swans might all be 21 and under, but they’ve been around long enough to know premierships, clubs and derby rivalries are built on tougher stuff than what your daddy gave you.

“Something we’ve always focused on at the Giants,” starts Josh Kelly, “is talent only gets you so far.

“We need to be able to work hard as a team and put everything together, otherwise it’s just not going to work.

“This year we feel we have taken a lot of steps forward in the right direction.”

Jacob Hopper picked up a Rising Star nomination for his performance against Gold Coast. Pic: Michael Klein.

For the Giants, those ingredients of youth and talent are hard to shake. Perception is reality.

When GWS put 100 points on a team, AFL rivals in Melbourne are quick to dismiss the achievements they believe have been gifted to a club born with a silver spoon lodged almost in its throat.

The extraordinary debut of 19-year-old Riverina product Jacob Hopper against the Gold Coast earlier this season — during which he broke records and earned a Rising Star nomination — was a phenomenal example of the potential at the Giants.

This is a group of superstar kids put on a bus to western Sydney, who have grown up into men together.

But by the same token, when the Giants lose back-to-back matches, as they have the past two weeks against Adelaide and Geelong, their adolescence and inexperience is used by critics as a negative to write them off.

Sydney's Callum Mills is an example of what the academies can produce. Picture: Phil Hillyard

“We’ve got no excuses whatsoever,” says Kelly. “We’re going out every week to win. We don’t see ourselves as the young team anymore.”

The irony over at the Sydney Swans is that, despite the emergence of Heeney, Mills and Papley among others, their critics still write them off for being past their used-by-date.

Fast forward to round 12 and the bloods are on the verge of their greatest winning start to a season ever (10-2) .

It’s only by an anomaly in the system that Mills hasn’t received a Rising Star nomination of his own, but as an academy product, the 19-year-old from the northern beaches insists the AFL can’t take his story for granted.

Mills played rugby union until he was 14 and said despite the bleating of AFL rivals, the game has a responsibility to foster the academy systems in NSW and Queensland.

Team work and not relying on just talent has been a big feature of GWS’s strategy this year. Pic: Michael Klein.

He believes it’s on the strength of the base offered by the academies, that the Swans and Giants rivalry will blossom for decades to come.

“Absolutely. It’s hard for people that don’t live in NSW to make comments on what it’s like but when you live up here you realise how dominant the other codes are and how important it’s for the academy to stay put,” Mills says.

“It’s really important for the growth not only of individuals but for AFL in general in NSW and Queensland.

“There’s lots of codes up here you can play and AFL is just one minor one.

“It’d be great if more younger NSW kids coming through look up at some of the players at the Sydney Swans like Kieren Jack and Isaac Heeney and really aspire to get to the Swans and really start barracking for Sydney.”