From a suburban RSL, footy’s giant killers GWS leap for glory

Tony Shepherd was not particularly interested in the role of inaugural president at GWS Giants.

Tony Shepherd with Giants board member Melissa Doyle. Picture: James Gourley

Tony Shepherd, one of the ­nation’s most powerful and infl­u­ential business identities, was not particularly interested in the role of inaugural president at then fledgling AFL club GWS Giants when first approached in 2010.

Until he received a mock ­obituary, that is. Then Giants chief executive Dale Holmes described Mr Shepherd, best known for leadership roles at Transfield and the ­Business Council of Australia, as the architect of “the great roads, tunnels and bridges” of Australia who went on to be the first GWS president.

“Tony … presided over the ­Giants during their most successful era; commencing with the challenge­s of (establishing) the club through to a dynasty of premierships that has made the Giants one of the great clubs of the AFL today,” Mr Holmes wrote in the mock obituary.

It was enough for Mr Shepherd, previously a Geelong fan, to call then AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou and say “you’ve got me”, adding himself to a respected cast that included legendary coach Kevin Sheedy and football operations boss Graeme “Gubby” Allen.

Not that success was guaranteed. The Giants went from copping thrashings such as a record 162-point hiding by Hawthorn in their first season in 2012, training on a baseball diamond when cricketers kicked them off a shared field, and having their officials work out of the Rooty Hill RSL Club in Sydney’s west to qualify for its first grand final this ­Saturday.

“This is a culmination of a dream,” Mr Shepherd said. “It is also vindication for the establis­hment of the club. We would not be here without the AFL, but it was an immensely courageous decis­ion to expand the competition with us and the Gold Coast Suns — and put us in western Sydney.

“It is not exactly AFL heartland, yet it was something they had to do to reach 53 per cent of the ­country’s population (in NSW and Queensland).”

GWS go into the grand final as underdogs against Richmond, a club with 100,000 members that has been restored to powerhouse status after almost three decades in the wilderness, peaking with the 2017 premiership.

Giants chief executive Dave Matthews said the Giants would relish being underdogs and ­reckoned his club would enjoy the bulk of support from neutrals among the huge crowd at the MCG and millions watching on television.

“I don’t think we are, say, playing against Victoria,” Mr Matthews said.

“We are playing Richmond, or as Sheedy might have said, we are playing a suburb. I hope Swans fans support us on the day, ­Canberra and NSW too. Neutrals usually go for the underdogs.

“But this will be a step change in terms of interest for us. Finals or grand finals in any sport end up capturing the imagination of ­people, whether they are AFL or NRL fans or whoever. So it is a big moment.”

The Giants hosted their own Brownlow Medal evening at their stadium in Sydney’s Olympic Park on Monday evening, and on Tuesday head to their second home in Canberra for a grand final function.

On Wednesday, about 500 corporate supporters — and Sheedy — will attend the Giants’ grand final lunch at The Star ­casino in Sydney.

The club will also take its full allocation of fans and corporate supporters to the MCG, hoping that belies the belief among at least some Victorian football followers­ that the Giants are a club without a soul and with few supporters.

The Giants have about 31,000 members, up from 25,000 last year, and there are high hopes that a huge television audience will tune in on Saturday, given the match boasts a team each from Australia’s two biggest markets in Sydney and Melbourne for the first time since cross-town rivals the Sydney Swans lost to the Western Bulldogs in 2016.

All of which is a far cry from the early days, when the Giants had a playing list of skinny teenagers who would carpool from Breakfast Point, where the Giants had them housed across about 40 apartments.

AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan has referred to the ­Giants as a true “start-up” in those days, which included having­ to share a training venue with ­Cricket NSW, who had priorit­y, at the Blacktown Inter­national Sports Park.

In 2011, when the Giants were playing in the second-tier North Eastern AFL, the AFL Commission saw the squad forced to train on a nearby baseball diamond and staff were housed in stifling demountables.

The resulting embarrassment led to Mr Matthews and AFL staff searching for suitable land to build a permanent training and office facility. They found what at the time was a golf driving range at ­Olympic Park.

Mr Demetriou and Mr McLachlan sat down with the facility’s owners, two wily former accountants, who played hard ball while explaining the­y had a nice, profitable business.

It took three attempts and a cheque of more than $2m for a deal to be struck.

Negotiations with the NSW government, including Essendon fan and MP Ian Macdonald, yielded a $45m contribution to ­revamp Giants Stadium; a contract­ with the ACT government worth $23m over 10 years was also important.

More recently, the Giants have helped build childcare centres to diversify their revenue and broaden their branding.

Mr Matthews, described by Mr Shepherd as just about the best chief executive in the AFL, said there were two important figures in the club’s early days: Sheedy, who coached GWS for two seasons after leading Essendon to four premierships and even taught players the art of signing autographs; and Israel Folau, who was recruited in a blaze of publicity in 2011 only to leave in 2013 for Super Rugby.

“Sheedy is one of the great figures­ in Australian sport,” Mr Matthews said.

“What he gave us was a sense of passion and resilience. He’d talk about winning quarters rather­ than winning games in the early days, making progress. And Israel, well, he put us in the pap­ers. It was a pretty bold move for an AFL club to go recruit an NRL star. And I think if he’d stayed around for longer he’d have made it (as a genuine player).”

Fast-forward to this week and the Giants play for the biggest prize in the sport.

Mr Matthews has told Giants staff to enjoy the build-up and embrace the spotlight but he says the club is just getting started in terms of reaching its potential.

“We want to be like the West Coast Eagles, which is an absolute powerhouse,” he said.

“It is a patient process. Footy has been around (for) 150 years, the Swans for 35 and us for eight.

“But there will be a time when we aim for 50,000 members and maybe we will need a stadium with 30,000-40,000 seats, not the 25,000 we have now.

“We don’t fill it yet … but I think this can be a huge club.”