GWS searching for first win at Geelong

GWS coach Leon Cameron says Geelong at Simonds Stadium is still the toughest road trip in the AFL.

Fast-improving Greater Western Sydney have racked up a couple of big AFL milestones early this season, winning in Perth for the first time and claiming a first-ever victory over Geelong.

Now comes an even tougher task - finding a way past the Cats at Simonds Stadium, a venue where half of the Giants' team for Saturday's top-four clash have never played a single AFL game.

Since early 2007, the Cats are a remarkable 64-6 on their home deck, including their last seven on the trot dating back to midway through 2015.

Geelong will be grateful to return to the comforts of home this week, having dropped their past two matches to Collingwood and Carlton.

The Giants are also coming off a last-start defeat at another hostile venue - away to the Crows at the Adelaide Oval - and assistant coach Luke Power is relishing the upcoming challenge at Simonds Stadium.

"If we start really well, which is important to us, we can hopefully silence the crowd," Power told reporters on Friday.

"But if we don't, then the crowd will get behind their team and they get something extra out of it.

"We've played without some good players this year - Devon Smith has had his battles and Ryan Griffen has had his battles with injuries.

"We lost a few players early on and we've still been able to win games which we hadn't been able to do in the past.

"We've been over to Perth and won there for the first time so we're ticking boxes all the time and now it's Geelong in Geelong, there would be no greater box to tick than that."

Only eight members of the Giants team named for Saturday's match also played in the club's only previous game at Simonds Stadium - a 65-point drubbing in their debut season back in 2012.

GWS have turned to their former Cats, including mercurial forward Steve Johnson, for some inside information on what it takes to win at the Cattery.

"For me the emotion of playing against my old team the first time (in Canberra in round two) was a little bit strange," said Johnson, a three-time premiership star with the Cats and long-time crowd favourite.

"Now I know it's just important that we go out there and try and play a brand of football that can hopefully stand up against a team that is rarely beaten down in Geelong.

"I know that first-hand because I've been involved a lot of those times."

GWS have stiffened their defence with the inclusion of backmen Phil Davis and Matt Buntine.

The Cats made three unforced changes, with clever forwards Dan Menzel and Lincoln McCarthy among the inclusions.

Geelong and GWS are third and fourth on the ladder respectively, both with 7-3 records.


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Source: AAP



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