Greater Western Sydney coach Leon Cameron says his struggling young team can't run from their unacceptable performance in Saturday's 113-point AFL loss to Richmond and they face a test of character over the coming weeks.
Richmond piled on 13 straight goals and GWS only managed one in the first half in a match between two teams who started level on competition points.
Cameron rated the performance even more disappointing than their 111-point last round flogging by West Coast, saying they served up tripe and only competed for 25 minutes.
There's no respite in sight, for GWS, who have lost six straight.
They play premiers Hawthorn at the MCG next Sunday.
"Footy is a funny game, it tests your character and it's going to test our character out in the coming weeks," Cameron said.
"But we've got to get over this and address it and then look forward to playing a very very good side next week at the MCG."
For Cameron and co-captain Callan Ward, the most damning statistic was the Giants getting beaten by 36 contested possessions.
"We just can't win vital one-on-one contests," Cameron said.
"We had an open and frank discussion about staying in the game for longer.
"We understand as a young group we're going to go through some of these performances, but it shouldn't be this unacceptable."
Ward said he was shattered by the performance.
"You can't expect to compete and win games if you lose contested possessions by (almost) 40 and you lose loose ball gets by 20 odd," Ward said.
With key defenders Phil Davis, Nick Haynes and Tim Mohr all battling back from long term injuries, Cameron even tried his namesake and All- Australian forward Jeremy Cameron as a key defender for around the first 20 minutes.
Share
