The BigFooty News’ Andy Ryan caught up with Greater Western Sydney Giant’s co-captain coach and triple-premiership player for the Brisbane Lions, Luke Power, in the wake of the clubs historic first premiership points.
Luke Power - flickr.com/roger-the-sheep/
It was the event very few thought would happen so soon.
The AFL’s newest team the Greater Western Sydney Giants, notched their first premiership points after beating the league’s second freshest team, the Gold Coast Suns, by 27 points at Canberra’s Manuka Oval. While sharing his playing and new found coaching experience with a number of local junior footy coaches at an open session, Power was first to point out the steep learning curve he was facing as a coach and quick to sing the praises of Mark Williams who he regarded as the best teacher he’s ever encountered while Kevin Sheedy provides many moments of “genius”.
Power said his transition from that of player to coach has been: “Really enjoyable, I’m loving it”. Power added that the weekend’s victory had done “amazing things” for the Giants.
The win by the three-year in the making Giants was “the reward and the results for all the hard work we’ve put in”. The club also boast three NAB Rising Star nominations from the first seven rounds of the competition and many argue they are ahead of the Gold Coast not just on the scoreboard last weekend, but also as a team heading forward. Power says the club hasn’t been using the Suns as a mark to measure themselves against.
“We are treating them more as our big brother, and with any big brother, you really want to beat them,” he said.
The first regular season victory for GWS has “done amazing things, it just makes it a happier place, we’ve been seeing significant improvement, but when you don’t get the result on the board, it makes it hard to keep it up for the players. But now we have that win it lets the players see the results from all the hard work they’ve been putting in.”
The co-captain and now defensive coach revealed that wins and losses were not really spoken about as far as your goals for the year, instead saying the Giants “just wanted to be competitive in every game, and I think so far we’ve been very competitive.”
The side aren’t getting ahead of themselves after their maiden victory, according to Power “now we’ve cracked it, we’ve just got to keep turning up – we’ve just got to be the best we can be every week and we are rotating a lot of young players and that’s the hardest thing, getting them into and used to the AFL experience.”
When asked about how historic the win was for GWS Power responded:
“The players sensed the history about the win, you saw the emotion after the game, and saw how happy the guys were and our guys are just a really good bunch of young blokes and I think they realise now how special it was.”
