ONE OF the most flamboyant players of this century has been given the keys to unlock Greater Western Sydney's spluttering attack.

Following three seasons as an assistant coach at Sydney, Steve Johnson is back where his playing career finished in 2017 to work under coach Leon Cameron.

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Not only is 'Stevie J' in control of the team's new-look forward line - minus Jeremy Cameron - but along with Adam Schneider is responsible for Giants' ball movement.

After being one of the most exciting teams in the competition for the previous four seasons, GWS limped to the 10th-most points scored in 2020 as they missed the finals.

Cameron said ball movement was an area that "clearly needed to be addressed" and Johnson and Schneider were the men to do it.

"We've probably slowed down our ball movement in past couple of years," Cameron told AFL.com.au.

"We probably went too slow last year and then trying to make up that ground in … five-day breaks, which were just about recovery, was a bit hard.

"Clearly, we need to use the corridor better.

"Steve and Adam are putting a lot of time and effort into that."

Johnson, who won three premierships with Geelong in a glittering career, played for Cameron in 2016 and 2017 before his career finished.

His 516 goals from 293 games stamped his reputation as an attacking genius, and one of the best thinkers in the game.

Cameron said he saw promising signs in his team's attack last season, without the results, from the second half of the round 13 loss to West Coast onwards.

Coming into his ninth season in charge, Cameron said it was naive to simply point the finger towards the ball movement for last season's scoring troubles though.

"What hurt us the most was we didn't have our hands on the footy," he said.

"We were regularly beaten up around the ball.

"When you haven't got your hands on the footy first up, you're always on the back foot and that obviously exacerbated our ball movement a fair bit."