AFL: GWS Giants midfielder Tom Green makes major early season statement as he aims to join game’s best

Tom Green burst out of the blocks in round 1 with a 31-disposal display in a losing cause for the Giants. What’s in store for him in his third season?

Giants rising star Tom Green started the season in brilliant form. Picture: Getty Images

Tom Green isn’t like many of the prized young midfielders who arrived at the Giants across the past decade.

The club consistently boasts one of the AFL’s deepest onball brigades, so the likes of Jye Caldwell, Jackson Hately, Paul Ahern, Matt Kennedy, Will Setterfield and Aiden Bonar – all first-round picks – found it tough.

All those players sought trades elsewhere, with only injury-cursed Ahern no longer in the league.

Even Jack Steele, the No.24 selection in the 2014 draft, managed only 17 appearances across his first two seasons for GWS before crossing to St Kilda and becoming a dual All-Australian.

Several of that crop were too impatient. Others were homesick and some were, maybe, not up for the fight. Only they can answer that.

Green, like Kennedy and Setterfield, rose through the Giants’ Academy and also had to bide his time but was never daunted about how he was going to break into the senior side.

Tom Green made an outstanding start to the new season. Picture: Getty Images

“It is frustrating (initially) but, to be honest, I looked at it as a challenge,” Green told News Corp.

“I looked at the team I was coming into and what excites me about it is you’re training with some of the best players in the competition every single week, so I was only going to get better as a result.

“It also meant because of the quality that we have, I’m going to be playing in a good side.

“I certainly didn’t look at it like, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to get into this side’. It was more like, ‘I’ll do whatever I have to, to push one of these blokes out of the way’ or ‘I’ll fight my way into this team’.”

Giants insiders watched with glee over summer as Green leapfrogged several of his more established teammates in the midfield pecking order.

That process began mid-last year – in the No.10 draft pick’s second season – with a series of eye-catching, disposal-heavy performances sometimes complemented with a scoreboard punch.

Tom Green is making his mark in his third season at the Giants. Picture: Getty Images

There will be more on that second bit later.

Those string of efforts last year followed him being dropped after round 1, when Green graciously accepted his `omission and the reason why: he was ball-hunting too much and being sucked into the contest.

Green, who is contracted until the end of the 2023 season, missed just one other match, not counting games lost to injury, as he cemented himself as a best-22 player.

There is no chance of a repeat of what happened to him 12 months ago.

The Giants faded to lose their season opener by 20 points to the Swans but Green was comfortably their best player, amassing a game-high 31 disposals, 17 contested possessions, eight clearances and seven tackles.

Plus two more goals, which caught coach Leon Cameron’s attention, as well as how well he is spreading from contest to contest.

Tom Green (far right) celebrates a Giants goal with Tim Taranto in the round 1 Sydney Derby. Picture: Getty Images

“He’s had a great pre-season and other than his first six or seven minutes, when he probably overused it a bit, he was by far our best mid,” Cameron said.

“He covered the ground well. We know how tough and hard he is – we’re always going to get that – but he made good decisions and to go forward and kick two goals as well, it’s a really good start from a young kid.”

Green doesn’t lack for confidence, but in a good way. The best players need to believe.

His teammate, fellow big-bodied midfielder Jacob Hopper, said on season eve last year that he wanted to be an All-Australian and went on to have a career-best campaign that saw him short-listed for those honours.

Green from four deep!#AFLGiantsSwanspic.twitter.com/s3fPAdNe61

— AFL (@AFL) March 19, 2022

The 21-year-old also wants to join that company one day – and isn’t ruling that out this season if all goes well, after watching Carlton’s Sam Walsh make it at the same age in 2021.

Green is modelling his game on players such as Christian Petracca and Dustin Martin, who not only dominate in the centre but are just as dangerous in attack.

He also watched Sydney co-captain Luke Parker boot five goals in a midfield-forward role on Saturday night.

“They’re the most valuable and damaging players in the game,” Green said.

“That’s the aspiration I have as a player and I think I showed glimpses of that last year. Some of my best games were good midfield games, but also kicking goals going forward and taking marks and that sort of stuff.

“That’s something I can become and I’m working really hard towards becoming.”

Originally published as AFL: GWS Giants midfielder Tom Green makes major early season statement as he aims to join game’s best