Down by 35 points before the main break at Engie Stadium, the Giants needed the first goal when play resumed to keep their bid for a top-four finish alive.<\/p>\n
Adam Kingsley’s side got that when young gun Finn Callaghan answered the call with a dash down the corridor, setting up a 15.12 (102) to 8.10 (58) win on Friday night.<\/p>\n
So dominant were GWS after early strife that they kicked eight straight goals – nine in total – in the third quarter for a 23-point lead at the final change.<\/p>\n
The home side, powered by a halftime spray described by Callaghan as “the biggest he’s ever given us”, had kicked just three majors in the opening half.<\/p>\n
Kingsley was less illustrative around his halftime message.<\/p>\n
“Oh, just reminders around the way that we want to play and asking certain players to lift their output, really,” Kingsley said.<\/p>\n
“I love the way that the guys responded.”<\/p>\n
Snaring their first win in six derbies, the Giants have effectively ended their cross-town rivals’ campaign to muscle into finals contention.<\/p>\n
The in-form outfit move to fifth (13-6) with their sixth consecutive win, while Sydney languish in 10th (9-10) ahead of the weekend’s clashes.<\/p>\n
A serious head knock to Hayden McLean further soured the loss, the Swans forward stretchered off in the opening minute.<\/p>\n
Sydney then lost defender Joel Hamling (hamstring) in the third quarter, while Giants veteran Josh Kelly’s night ended prematurely with a calf complaint.<\/p>\n
“It doesn’t look good to start with,” Swans coach Dean Cox said on Hamling’s hamstring injury.<\/p>\n
Callaghan earned his first Brett Kirk medal for his best afield performance, as captain Toby Greene proved their firestarter in a fierce battle with Swans livewire Tom Papley.<\/p>\n
Greene had issued an ominous warning at halftime after Papley celebrated his first major on return from a hamstring injury by making a beeline for the Giants forward.<\/p>\n
“He’s (Papley) looking overweight,” Greene told Fox Footy at halftime.<\/p>\n
“Let’s see how he goes in the second half.”<\/p>\n
Greene also had a pre-first-bounce tussle with Swans defender Dane Rampe before giving away a free kick for an arm to Isaac Heeney’s head.<\/p>\n
Aaron Cadman and Jake Stringer slotted three majors each, as defenders Harry Himmelberg and Lachie Ash got in on the goalscoring action with one apiece.<\/p>\n
Errol Gulden led the Swans with 32 disposals, while Will Hayward was commanding in attack with three-straight majors in the opening half.<\/p>\n
Sydney started the better side after finding composure following McLean’s injury.<\/p>\n
He clashed heads with Giants defender Jack Buckley in a marking contest.<\/p>\n
Buckley had been pushed into McLean when Giants teammate Sam Taylor entered the contest and attempted to spoil the mark while wrestling with Swans player Jack Buller.<\/p>\n
Play was delayed for six minutes as a conscious McLean left the field on a medicab, with Aaron Francis coming into the game in his place.<\/p>\n
Sydney then kicked six straight goals to take a 28-point lead at halftime, before Greene issued his Orange Tsunami warning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Down by 35 points before the main break at Engie Stadium, the Giants needed the first goal when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-21255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}