GWS Giants is a team full of young stars but five top players fell into their laps, writes Shane Crawford

GWS has the best playing list ever assembled but if the Giants win the flag they can thank rival AFL clubs who “gifted” them a handful of players, writes SHANE CRAWFORD.

Heath Shaw has become a better player at GWS. Picture: Getty Images

GREATER Western Sydney has the best playing list ever assembled. Fact. Don’t even try to argue against it. You can’t.

No other team has been able to bring together as much talent into the one organisation.

But if they can win their next two games — and in the process win a maiden flag — it won’t just be the high draft picks and the exceptionally generous AFL sweeteners that did it for them.

They will also be able to thank the miscalculations and misjudgements of some rival AFL clubs who “gifted” the Giants a handful of players for various reasons.

Geelong didn’t need Steve Johnson any more. Collingwood was eager to part with problem child Heath Shaw.

And the Sydney Swans were so keen to secure Lance Franklin that they were prepared to live without Shane Mumford.

The Western Bulldogs didn’t want to lose Callan Ward or Ryan Griffen. But for whatever reason, they couldn’t keep them.

Instead, these five players — leaving aside the fact that Johnson is suspended for Saturday’s preliminary final — hold the key to Greater Western Sydney’s chances of winning the premiership in only its fifth season.

STEVE JOHNSON 

Just imagine if Geelong and Steve Johnson square off in a Grand Final on Saturday week.

How big a storyline would that be? And how petrified Cats fans would be of Stevie J turning on the party tricks to remind Geelong of the mistake it made late last year by not offering him a new deal.

The Cats have had a great season. You can’t deny that. But so, too, has Johnson, and his form has more than justified his decision to continue his career elsewhere.

Steve Johnson wasn’t ready to retire last year. Picture: Phil Hillyard

Like Brent Harvey is feeling right now, Johnson knew he had petrol left in the tank for 2017 — and maybe beyond. The Cats disagreed, and on that front, at least, they were wrong.

Chris Scott would argue that by bringing Patrick Dangerfield into the team and giving Daniel Menzel a better run at it, hard decisions had to be made. And they were.

But was the Johnson decision the right one?

We might know more about that on October 1.

SHANE MUMFORD

When Sydney offered Buddy Franklin the keys to the city — and $10 million to boot — someone was always going to have to pay a price.

And it turned out to be ruckman Shane Mumford. The man who famously used to polish off 20 sausages in one sitting felt as if he was left with a handful of mini-hot dogs.

Shane Mumford felt he was pushed out of the Swans but is now happy at the Giants. Picture: Toby Zerna

It was small change, and left him feeling slighted. And the Giants pounced on the Mummy man.

Mumford clearly feels he was pushed out of a side with whom he had won a premiership in 2014 because of the mammoth nine-year deal involving Franklin.

Any wonder there is history between the two of them. He’s happy with the Giants now.

And I’m sure those young GWS players are just as pleased to have a protector and a leader as imposing as the big man.

HEATH SHAW

Let’s just say Nathan Buckley got this one wrong. The decision to allow Heath Shaw to leave a club that he barracked for as a kid, and whose family is written up in the pages of its history, was wrong.

I’m sure Bucks would point out that the trade saw Taylor Adams join the club, and he is a future captain, and that perhaps Shaw needed to go elsewhere to become a better player.

He has certainly done that, being an All-Australian the past two seasons, and the 2010 Magpie premiership player has become the vocal architect of the GWS set-up in the back half.

Heath Shaw has become a better player at GWS. Picture: Getty Images

Shaw’s exit papers were probably already signed when he had a game he would prefer to forget in the 2013 elimination final against Port Adelaide.

He and the coach never quite saw eye-to-eye — Shaw clearly was one player who would have preferred it if the Pies had stuck with Mick Malthouse.

Shaw has taken his football, and his leadership, to a new level, at the Giants, which must act as an eternal frustration for Magpie fans.

CALLAN WARD

If the Western Bulldogs hadn’t bungled Callan Ward’s contract negotiations in 2011 — and been prepared to offer him an extra $50,000 — the man they call “Cement Head” would still be in red, white and blue today.

As Sam Landsberger revealed in the Herald Sun recently, Ward was prepared to accept $335,000 to commit to the Bulldogs. But the club dithered and offered him $285,000.

Callan Ward probably should still be a Bulldog. Picture. Phil Hillyard

In the meantime the Giants came in with a long-term offer of about $800,000. That was a no-brainer. He had to accept.

But if the Bulldogs had been quicker and smarter, and found the extra $50,000, he would probably be the heir apparent to Bob Murphy right now, along with Marcus Bontempelli.

Instead, he is the sort of midfielder GWS couldn’t do without.

RYAN GRIFFEN

When Ryan Griffen walked out on the Western Bulldogs at the end of 2014, it was one of football’s biggest shocks.

Captains generally don’t leave their clubs, but this one did.

Ryan Griffen shocked the footy world when he left the Bulldogs for the Giants. Picture: Getty Images

And insiders will tell you that it was the whole leadership role that never quite sat comfortably with him.

He was a reluctant captain in the first place.

So maybe, just maybe, if the Dogs had realised he didn’t want the role, things might have worked out differently for him — and for them.

Admittedly, the deal saw the Dogs claim Tom Boyd, which could work out well in the end, but Griffen’s leadership (without the official title) has been a bonus for the Giants.