Given those wins, the Giants went into the opening round of the Foxtel Cup with optimism. Their rival in a match of four 20-minute quarters at the MCG was the Northern Bullants, runner-up in the VFL the past two seasons.
The Giants' optimism lasted barely beyond the opening bounce. The Bullants kicked three goals in the opening five minutes and eight for the quarter. They added four more to none in the second quarter.
The Giants were missing some of their best teenage prospects because they were playing for the AIS-AFL Academy squad against the Bendigo Bombers, but still they were reeling after the Bullants’ early blitz.
Their team had only four who had played on the MCG: Curtly Hampton, Lonnie Hampton, Jake Neade and Damian Williams, all from the Northern Territory. Most of the Giants players were 18 or 19. Two 23-year-olds, Jonathan Giles and Steve Clifton, were the team's oldest.
The score at half-time was 12.4 (76) to 0.3 (3).
Kevin Sheedy is the Giants coach, with Port Adelaide's 2004 premiership coach Mark Williams his deputy. The AFL Record spent the game on the Giants' bench, observing the machinations of the coach and his staff.
Sheedy spent the first half in silence just in front of the bench, near the interchange gates. Mostly, he stood with one arm folded and a hand over his mouth, as though in contemplation, while Williams coached the team from the coach's box.
On the bench, Craig Lambert, the former Richmond and Brisbane Lions player, delivered the rotation instructions with rat-a-tat precision, often with an encouraging word as players came off the ground. The coaching and medical staff on the bench worked steadily while raising one eyebrow at the growing margin.
Sheedy spoke to only one player in the first half, telling key forward Ben Casley to have a shot rather than pass the ball if he was within range. Casley noticeably lost confidence as the game wore on. He was by no means on his own.
Williams spoke first to the players at half-time. He was forceful, gesticulatory, berating the players for their effort while encouraging them to pick themselves up. "Toughen up," was his final instruction.
Sheedy spoke calmly, with short bursts in which he raised his voice for effect. "You don't PLAY FOOTY any more. It's YOUR CAREER."
He told the players the first half was like their 15th birthday. "It's gone."
You could almost hear the players and staff add to those words in their own minds: "Not by much."
During the second half, Sheedy stepped in and spoke to many players as they came on and off the bench. He had both hands in front of him, fingers stretched out in the marking position, when making his point.
To a ruckman: "Never let that happen again. Go hard!"
To a small forward who was sent on to curtail a playmaker: "Give him nothing!"
To midfielders too intent on bringing the ball through the corridor: "If you have to go down the sides, go down the sides."
There was a mixture of joy and relief when the Giants scored their first goal. It came 10 minutes into the third quarter when Casley snapped truly from a scrimmage.
Sheedy smiled and took a few quiet steps, his hands clasped behind his back.
The Giants then kicked three more goals to see out the third quarter in style.
"We're trying to put up a creditable performance," Sheedy said after the match. "And for a quarter they did. (We) won the third quarter."
The Bullants resumed their dominance in the last quarter, kicking five goals to one to win by 89 points, 19.9 (123) to 5.4 (34).
The main thing to emerge from a Giants point of view was the strong performance of Jack Hombsch, an 18-year-old who was moved from the back pocket to centre half-forward in the second half.
Hombsch led hard and straight and exerted his presence on the match. Sheedy made a big deal of him. "Clearly our best player," he said.
The player most scrutinised, of course, was Israel Folau, whose performance again was underwhelming. His opponent for much of the match was Carlton’s Bret Thornton, who kicked six goals.
Folau had two kicks and two handballs. One of his kicks was a long drive out of defence straight to a Bullants player on his own on the 50m arc. The ball went straight back to where it had come from.
The Giants' performance in the face of strong opposition should have been a cause for concern. Instead, the mood in the rooms after the match was buoyant.
When Williams was asked about working with such a young squad, he said: "It's uplifting."
Of the arrangement in which he speaks to the players first and then Sheedy follows: "We complement each other."
Sheedy said there was no point flogging the players after the big loss. "They're in a learning phase and I don't think a coach, especially a coach with my experience, should come in over the top."
He said he felt for the players because they were expected to perform against senior opposition when most had just come out of under-age competitions.
"When I started out in the VFA, I was 16, 17, 18, playing against men who'd played 100 VFL games," he said. "These kids have had trips to Africa and Europe as part of their development, but I was a mile ahead of where they are."
Throughout the day, Sheedy nursed the wrist he had broken during a bike ride in Sydney. "I was getting fit to coach," he said, smiling broadly.
