INJURY carnage for Greater Western Sydney saw it field 16 players at times in its 105-point thrashing of Carlton on Sunday afternoon at Etihad Stadium, and Giants coach Leon Cameron admitted it was "not a great look".

The third-placed GWS was almost forced into making the decision, with the win sewn up.

Brett Deledio was sidelined midway through the second quarter with a left calf injury and Sam Taylor (left hamstring), Dawson Simpson (left ankle) and Toby Greene (left hamstring) all followed.

The latter went off midway through the third term, leaving no fit players on the bench.

With the margin 66 points at the final break and percentage basically irrelevant because of the Giants' draw with St Kilda, Cameron asked an AFL official whether his team could play short.

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Amazingly, the Giants dominated the final term, 7.3 (45) to 1.0 (6), and didn't concede any scores in the time they had 17 and then 16 men on the park.

"It was one of those strange moments that obviously doesn't happen a lot, but clearly at three-quarter time we knew what position we were in," Cameron said.

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"We were trying to muster up and bring one or two maybe back on but that didn't happen. We discussed playing with 17, 16 at times, only for a minute or two because there were a couple of other players out on the field that were cramping and also struggling a little bit.

"You don't want that to happen again, but I thought the club managed it really, really well."

Greene ran briefly at the final break and seemed likely to attempt a return as GWS thought carefully about how it would manage the strange situation.

"They were off for about a minute or two. They had a quick rub. They were assessed to see whether they were safe to go back on and they would come back on," Cameron said.

"We kept on checking with the official from the AFL who was to my left. They were fantastic as well. I think in a situation that's not a great look, I thought it was handled really well."

The Giants have a short break before facing Adelaide next Saturday night in Canberra but that wasn't a factor in their decision-making.

"The six-day break was irrelevant. It was more the safety of the players that were out there," Cameron said.

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"I mean, young Aiden Bonar was playing his first game. He's come off two knee reconstructions and I'm asking him to play the full quarter.

"Young Zac Langdon's in his first year. Brent Daniels' in his first year and I'm asking them to play the full quarter after they've already gone to the well in the third and the second, so that was a safety thing."

Blues coach Brendon Bolton didn't have an issue with the Giants playing short.

"It speaks volumes for their depth," Bolton said.

"It also speaks volumes for their growth as a club, in terms of their intelligence in that space. They were down on numbers, but you could see they went into a chip-mark game for periods of that last quarter.

"It showed their class and their running power, but it also showed their ability to adapt.

"They've come a long way as a group, because they weren't all running flat-out forward. They also controlled the ball, given they had a lack of rotations. It spoke volumes for their smarts in that last quarter."