GREATER Western Sydney is confident its host of out-of-contract young stars will choose to overlook lucrative rival offers to stick together and chase success.
The club faces a season in the spotlight, with key forward Jeremy Cameron, brilliant midfielder Adam Treloar and small forward Devon Smith among the players whose deals end at the close of 2015.
Will Hoskin-Elliott, Dylan Shiel and Stephen Coniglio are other emerging players who are yet to commit to the Giants beyond this season, with clubs already closely monitoring how contract talks proceed.
Ahead of his second season as Giants coach, Leon Cameron said he would never begrudge a player trying to gain maximum worth throughout his AFL career.
However, with players across the competition already "very well paid", he said it was up to clubs to build an environment which made in-demand players want to stay put.
"The really good clubs create a great culture for those players to then understand that 'I want to be part of something really special, so I'm going to sacrifice something to stay here at this club'," Cameron told AFL.com.au.
"And we feel as though we're building that at our footy club so guys are going to have to make sacrifices, because there's always going to be bigger offers elsewhere.
"There's going to be offers from other clubs saying 'If you come here we'll pay you more'.
"But in the end do you want to be remembered as a premiership player or do you want to be remembered as a player that was jumping ship all the time because of money?"
Ankle injuries and a severe ear problem diminished Cameron's influence in the forward line last year, but his coach said discussions were going well with the 21-year-old.
"I think you'd get concerned if there's no talk. With all of the guys we're having some really good dialogue with their management," he said.
"All these young players are indicating to us that they love the culture of our footy club, they love what we're building, they've been through the hard yards and they're confident the contracts will get done."
The Giants have lost five top-15 draft picks over the past two years – Jonathan O'Rourke, Kristian Jaksch, Taylor Adams, Dom Tyson and Tom Boyd – but have manoeuvered trades so that they can continue to bring in early draft picks as well as some senior depth.
Although the Giants were quick to shoot down any chance of trading No.1 pick Boyd at the end of his first season, the club later chose to offload the power forward to the Western Bulldogs in exchange for senior midfielder Ryan Griffen and pick No.6 at the draft.
"The deal went on, and we got pick six and (financial) support on Ryan's contract. It became such a good deal for us that [we thought] 'We've got to do it'," Cameron said.
"Do we want to do that all the time? No, we don't, because there's the sense of loyalty. If you want the players to be loyal to your football club, clubs have got to be loyal to players."
Watch the above video for an exclusive extended interview with Leon Cameron.
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