GREATER Western Sydney CEO Dave Matthews says it's time for the footy public to get off Leon Cameron's back.
Cameron will begin his eighth season in charge of the Giants when they open their campaign against St Kilda at home on Sunday,
After missing the finals last season for the first time since 2015, pre-season commentary has swirled abut Cameron's long-term job security despite having a contract until the end of 2022.
Matthews was emphatic in his support, telling AFL.com.au there was no doubt his club had the right man at the helm.
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"His coaching track record is there for all to see," Matthews said.
"He's not a first-year coach, he's been coaching at this club for a long time.
"It's not a subjective view, it's an objective view. Objectively he's done a very good job coaching this club.
"Sometimes he attracts attention, I think, that is disproportionate with his record. He's got us to four finals series, won us finals in every one of those years.
"Whilst we can all dwell on some disappointments of 2020, we're not going to. If you took a line through the last five years, six years, we've been a very competitive unit and he's the right man to lead us."
Cameron has a 56 per cent winning record from 125 games in charge, including a Grand Final appearance in 2019 before last year's nosedive.
Matthews says despite the off-season loss of Jeremy Cameron, Zac Williams and Aidan Corr among six player departures, he expected a return to the form closer to 2019 than that of 2020.
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"I think change is part of footy," he said.
"Some of those guys have been terrific servants at our club. I know how torn Jeremy was with his decision.
"I just think it creates further opportunity.
"I don't see this as any sort of rebuild at all, I see it as a reset.
"There's a bit of change in personnel and a few tweaks to the gameplan that Leon and his coaching group have been looking at, but it's certainly more a reset than a rebuild."
Cameron said he spent some of his off-season reflecting on what went wrong last year.
It came down to a few areas, he said: not being strong enough around the contest, not moving the ball well enough and not handling the 'hubs' as well as they could have.
"We reviewed hard, didn't put our head in the sand and had a really strong pre-season," Cameron said.
"It doesn't mean you're going to win every week, but what it does mean is you want to get your DNA back and that means competing, competing for every second, every minute of the game.
"We want to be closer to the 2019 Giants.
"We need to bounce back with our appetite, our contested method that we built up a really good brand, a really good DNA at our club over four or five years.
"We need to get that brand back.
"We want to play finals footy every year, regardless of whether or not we've got six new kids. When you make the eight, anything can happen."
