Out-of-form GWS Giants still have sights on flag: coach Adam Kingsley

Greater Western Sydney may have lost their past three games, but coach Adam Kingsley still has his sights set on winning this season’s AFL premiership.

The famed “big, big sound’‘ of Sydney’s west has not been heard since the Giants’ nine-goal pummelling of Brisbane on April 25.

Appearing genuine flag contenders after a 5-0 start to the year, the alarm bells are now ringing for sixth-placed GWS as they approach the season’s halfway mark.

Sydney and Essendon claimed the Giants’ scalps in rounds eights and nine, before an inaccurate Western Bulldogs won their wet-weather battle by 27 points last time out.

Still, Kingsley isn’t giving up hope of the club claiming their maiden flag this season.

“We’re still inside the top eight. We’ve just got to get our season back on track,” Kingsley said on Thursday.

“We’ve got to move the ball a bit better than what we have as an overriding principle of trying to get more inside-50s. We’re just being shut down in that phase of the game a little bit too easily.

“That’s partly us. It’s partly opposition, so we can fix what we can fix ourselves and keep working on it.”

Geelong also find themselves on a three-game losing run, most recently succumbing by 64 points to Damien Hardwick’s Gold Coast in Darwin.

Formidable goalkickers Jeremy Cameron and Tom Hawkins are primed to return for the Cats, with Hawkins set to become the club’s games record-holder.

The soon-to-be 356-gamer is almost certain to cause trouble for the Giants defenders after going goalless in his past four games.

But the Giants are no strangers to beating the Cats at home.

Kingsley’s men have won their past three matches at GMHBA Stadium, most recently beating the hosts by seven points to celebrate skipper Toby Greene’s 200th game last year.

“We’re expecting a different team than what we saw up in Darwin last week and are preparing accordingly,” Kingsley said.

“Geelong will get some players back we expect, so that will help strengthen them up back at home in front of the home crowd.

“It’s always tough to head down there, but we’ve had some recent form (at Geelong), so that gives us a little bit of confidence.

“We’ve taken some pieces out of last year’s game that we played down there that we really liked. We’ll try and implement them again and see how we go.”

Leek Aleer could return to the side to replace defender Jack Buckley (calf), while Max Gruzewski is a chance to come in for forward Darcy Jones (hamstring).