GREATER Western Sydney's maiden Grand Final appearance ended in severe disappointment, but coach Leon Cameron is confident his club won't be scarred long-term by its embarrassing 89-point defeat at the hands of Richmond.
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The Giants led the Tigers late in the first term, but gave up the next 11 goals of the match in a devastating loss that will hurt for some time.
However, Cameron said history shows that his players have responded well after past finals losses, and they can do it again.
Injured Giant Stephen Coniglio (r) consoles a tearful Brent Daniels. Picture: AFL Photos
The Giants lost consecutive preliminary finals to the Western Bulldogs (2016) and Richmond (2017), before going down to Collingwood in last year's semi-final.
"We can wallow in pity, or we can learn from our first venture into playing on that last Saturday in September," Cameron said.
"If I know our group, and I think I know them pretty well, they will want to explore what happened and they'll want to get better, because they want to chase the dream that Richmond got.
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"We've had four finals series in a row and they bounced back from '16 to make another prelim in '17.
"We were disappointed with our finals loss to Collingwood in '18, and then we've got here in '19.
"There's definitely an appetite for them to keep growing.
"I'm confident that that will continue to happen, and in six months' time we've got to be prepared to go again."
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The GWS rooms were deathly quiet post-match, with several players visibly emotional after the Tigers thumping.
Cameron said his message to the players behind closed doors was simple.
"All you can do is be honest with the group," he said.
"Clearly after quarter-time we didn't play a brand of footy that could stand up to Richmond.
"We're disappointed because we thought we up made some serious ground (on the competition) during the finals.
"We're rapt to have played on the big stage but we're disappointed that we didn't live up to our end of the bargain and bring a better spectacle."
Giant Lachie Whitfield won't remember his first Grand Final fondly. Picture: AFL Photos
The Giants had to win three tough finals against the Dogs, Brisbane and the Pies, two of them on the road, to make their first Grand Final, but Cameron didn't want to use the lead-up to justify his side's poor performance.
"I'm not into excuses," he said.
"I know people will look at it, but that would be discrediting Richmond.
"We take our hats off to them, clearly there's areas of our game that we need to find five or 10 per cent to compete against a side like that on the last Saturday in September."
Toby Greene feels the agony of the Giants' crushing Grand Final defeat. Picture: AFL Photos
The selection of co-captain Phil Davis came down to a pre-game fitness test after the key defender suffered a calf injury in last week's preliminary final win over Collingwood.
Cameron said there was definitely a chance that Davis could have been ruled out when he was tested just 90 minutes before the clash.
The 29-year-old struggled to have his usual impact and conceded three second-quarter goals to Tiger Jack Riewoldt, but Cameron denied playing the skipper was a factor in the loss.
"He's not the reason we got beaten by 80-odd points, we were beaten all over the ground," he said.
"Phil's mindset was really strong since the game last Saturday.
"We didn't hide it, he was tested and was in front of the cameras the whole time.
"He came in and I asked him if he could play 120 minutes of footy and he said 'Yes', and I backed the captain in, and I'll continue to back him in."
