GWS Giants back training and excited to see light at end of tunnel

The canteen was closed, hasn’t been open since the plague hit, but then again neither had the clubhouse. Or the gym.

Heath Shaw during a GWS Giants training session at Giants HQ on Monday. Picture: AAP

The canteen was closed, hasn’t been open since the plague hit, but then again neither had the clubhouse. Or the gym. Or the supporters shop and administrative offices. Still, somebody had been in with a lawnmower so the first group to return to the Giants’ training compound at 7am on Monday morning were not confronted with grass as high as the point posts.

Cobwebs on the gym equipment scattered beneath the awning was the most obvious sign of the yawning absence of activity and humanity between then and now.

Footballers, coaches and kitchen staff were banished to their homes when the shutters went up on the season after Round 1.

On Monday most, but not all, returned keen to recommence the campaign to go one better than last year when they lost the last and most crucial game of the ­season. The Giants should have been recovering from a clash against the Saints at home on Saturday night before a flight west to play the Eagles this Sunday. Another weekend, another game of footy, another airport, another group of fans seeking autographs after games, always the same faces. Another week on the physio table for the old and injured. Another week of post and pre-match analyses.

Giants forward Jeremy Cameron kicks during a GWS training session at Tom Wills Oval on Monday. Picture: Getty Images

Stuff we all took for granted until it was wrenched away.

But not everything that was absent has returned.

There won’t be any fans when the game recommences, there will be a decided absence of trains and airports and probably even team buses, but at least there’ll be footy come June 11. The kids that sell the records won’t. The attendants on the car parks will stay home. But there will be footy.

The canteen staff weren’t the only ones who have not reappeared at HQ. The coaching and support staff has been cut in half and only the 25 deemed essential returned on Monday with the 40-odd players on the list. The Giants squad was broken down into groups of eight or less who arrived on the hour from 7am.

While Heath Shaw gave the media — let in through a tradesmen’s entrance — insights from a distance on the veranda, coach Leon Cameron gave the next group of arrivals a briefing on protocols in the lunch room.

Toby Greene sat at the back of the class, which one suspects was always the case until he was banished from it or forced to take the naughty seat at the front. His group included Stephen Coniglio, who was appointed the club’s first standalone captain in December and has led the group, and Lachie Whitfield.

It was not by chance that a midfielder, forward and defender were in one cluster for the club has divided its talent deliberately in case the worst happens. If they put all their midfielders together in one group and somebody tests positive it would be a crippling blow to the line-up come Round 2.

If Heath Shaw was twitching and blinking it’s because he’s excited to see “light at the end of the tunnel” and just so relieved to be out. The hyperactive defender is the life of the club, but has had to suffer the recent weeks with just himself for company in his Surry Hills abode. “We just want to get back to training and get ready for Round 2 and from there it’s business as usual for us,” he said. “There is a premiership up for grabs and we’ve understood that since day one of training in December. For a guy who is a little bit older (34) that has definitely been in the back of the mind and the main focus. We’ve got some hard yards to do in the lead-up to that.”

Shaw acknowledges the players will have to become more self-sufficient. “Cutting back on staff is something all clubs have had to do, and it means other people have to pick up the slack,” he said.

“I know as an older statesman and one of the more experienced players … we’re probably going to have to help a little bit more in terms of that leadership and it might even be coaching as well.

“We’re willing to do anything to get us into a position to win a premiership and if that means putting in a bit of extra time and doing some extra stuff, we’re going to have to do it.”

He believes nobody will do anything to endanger the start of the season after missing it for so long. “It’s pretty simple — we do the right thing and we get to play footy,” he said. “We understand that and everyone’s on board and knows the sacrifices we have to make to get football up and going. We’re willing to do that.”