GWS Giants coach Leon Cameron says team not hurt by consecutive road trips

LEON Cameron has dismissed suggestions his team is feeling the ill effects of a gruelling travel schedule after arguably the two toughest road trips in the AFL.

LEON Cameron has dismissed suggestions his team is feeling the ill effects of a gruelling travel schedule which includes visits to Adelaide and Geelong in the past two weeks — arguably the toughest road trips in the AFL right now.

The Giants will be relishing the opportunity to get in their cars and drive to Sunday’s local derby against the Swans at Spotless Stadium after no less than nine trips to the airport this year (including the NAB Challenge).

The past two weeks have been brutal finals-like contests against the Crows and the Cats and produced consecutive losses for the first time this season for GWS. But the coach says fatigue wasn’t a factor.

Callan Ward leads the Giants out against Geelong.

“No it (fatigue) isn’t an influence at all,” Cameron said.

“We’ve just had some players who probably aren’t contributing at the level they have been at the earlier part of the year, but I’m confident they can find their way back to that sort of form.

“It’s hard to be up for 22 weeks. The competition is tough. We’ve played two really good sides.

“We’ve won four out of those eight quarters but some of those quarters they’ve been five-goal quarters against, and in one case Adelaide kicked eight goals to one, which is disappointing. We just need a bit more consistency with 100 minutes.”

It’s not surprising Cameron is reluctant to make excuses for his team, given its Sydney home base will be committed to the Easter Show for six weeks each year.

The Swans could have fatigue issues themselves this week after their waterlogged slog against Gold Coast last Saturday. Sydney laid a massive 134 tackles in the match, which was a club record.

Steve Johnson takes some deep breaths after the final siren last Saturday.

“It was a physically tough game,” Swans co-captain Kieren Jack said.

“There was no easy ball out there. But seeing the boys yesterday everyone is feeling pretty well, no injuries, everyone has pulled up well from that and will probably be different out here on Sunday.”

The Swans have lost just two games this year, both on the road (to Adelaide and Richmond).

After demolishing Hawthorn by 75 points, winning in Perth for the first time (Fremantle) and beating the Western Bulldogs, the Giants have gone off the boil in the past couple of weeks against the Crows and Cats. Cameron says they need to tighten their defence but aren’t far off their best.

“The sides we’ve played are some pretty good footy teams,” Cameron said.

“But I’d have to say probably down by 5 or 10 per cent in some areas. Defensive side of it hasn’t been the best in the last two weeks, but we’re proud that we’ve hung in games where this time last year we probably would have had six or seven-goal losses instead of 10-point losses and 20-point losses.”

GWS’ Leon Cameron and Phil Davis with the Swans’ John Longmire and Kieren Jack.

John Longmire improved his record against the Giants to 8-1 after beating his cross-town rivals by 21 points in Round 3 at the SCG. Cameron dismissed suggestions his team is better suited to Spotless Stadium than the SCG.

“An oval is an oval,” Cameron said.

“We played down in Geelong and people probably said that ground didn’t suit us, but with 10 minutes to go we were two points down.

“A ground is a ground, everyone tries to have some sort of home-ground advantage, whether that be the atmosphere, the knowledge of the wind, whatever it might be, but once the ball goes up, it’s on. We love playing at home, but I wouldn’t say we lost because we can’t play at the SCG.”

The Giants remain undefeated at Spotless Stadium this year (3-0) and had a 5-2 record there last year.

Originally published as GWS Giants coach Leon Cameron says team not hurt by consecutive road trips