GREATER WESTERN SYDNEY coach Adam Kingsley is confident a big goal haul is imminent for his superstar captain Toby Greene as the Giants look to ease a poor record at Optus Stadium in Sunday's clash against West Coast.
A blistering 2-0 start to the year for the Giants has been all the more impressive considering Greene has kicked just the one major to start the season off the back of a career-best campaign of 66 goals in 2023.
With 10 goals in two weeks for Jesse Hogan and seven for Callum Brown, Greene's total is of little concern for GWS, but the coach is adamant that will turn quickly.
"If you look at last week, he had five shots on goal (for four behinds). He's had nine marks, 21 touches, 10 score involvements. He's still impacting the game, it's not necessarily on the scoreboard," Kingsley said.
"That's pleasing, we're still able to score without Toby kicking any goals that's one thing we've taken out of it. But again, he can come out in any week and put five or six on the board and dominate the game.
"To be quite frank, he doesn't look at the scoreboard and think about how many he's kicked, it's more about how many we've kicked."
It's the premiership fancies against the wooden spoon favourites in the west on Sunday and while anything but a comfortable Giants win would be a surprise, Optus Stadium is a venue they clearly struggle at.
They hold a startling 1-9 record at the ground despite making the finals in four of the six years that it has been in operation, and that included a round two defeat there to West Coast last year.
"It's a beautiful ground to play at but one we haven't done all that well there, so we need to rectify that," Kingsley said.
"I don't think it's concerning it's just one of those things you want to right if you can. Last year we managed to overcome them (winning at 11 different venues). This will just be another one on the list."
The Giants eventually eased to a 39-point win over North Melbourne last week, but that margin was merely 19 points at half-time despite having double the scoring shots than their visitors.
The coach was far from pleased with the first half application and is hopeful of seeing a change this week against opposition likely to finish in a similar part of the ladder to the Roos.
"That's a message every week, we want to be ruthless every week," Kingsley said.
"It wasn't necessarily our attack that was causing issues it's really our defending to be fair and so we had some moments that I would have liked to have been better.
"North Melbourne challenged us just like West Coast will this week. We've got to make sure our defence is really strong and stingy."
The coach was clearly unperturbed by a bizarre back page of The West Australian newspaper labelling West Australians Stephen Coniglio, Sam Taylor, Toby Bedford and Jesse Hogan as traitors.
The label is bemusing considering none of them have been in a position to reject the chance to play for WA clubs in their careers.
"That's their passion so they'll try and unsettle us as best they can, whether that's with the paper or the crowd. They love their teams and so they'll do whatever it takes to try and help them, so we have no issue with it," Kingsley said.
Veteran defender Nick Haynes will miss the trip west as he awaits the birth of his child with Kingsley admitting a call awaits between James Peatling, Toby McMullin and Ryan Angwin to replace him as the sub against the Eagles.
In further encouraging news for the Giants, 2023 draftees Phoenix Gothard and Joe Fonti were back in training after illness and injury setbacks while first round selection James Leake was running laps as he recovers from a quad strain.
Speedster Darcy Jones looked slick on the track once more as he continues to firm for an early season debut.
