Amid the GWS delight in Toby Greene’s imminent return from suspension, coach Leon Cameron is wary of the AFL clash with St Kilda becoming “The Toby Show”.
Greene has completed his six-game ban for making intentional contact with umpire Matt Stevic during last year’s finals series and will return against the Saints in Canberra on Friday night.
Cameron said seeing Adelaide forward Taylor Walker boot nine goals across his first two games back from his six-game racism suspension showed a player could perform straight away after a lengthy lay-off.
“I looked at Taylor Walker and his first two weeks have been absolutely first class, so if we got that sort of return we’d be over the moon,” Cameron said.
“But I’m mindful that it can’t be ‘The Toby Show’, as much as we love him and he’s an integral part, he’s our joint-captain now, he can’t wait to be back.
“No doubt you get an energy lift amongst your group because he’s there, but if we become too Toby-focused, then other things are not going to work out for us.”
While Greene booted 45 goals in 18 games last year to earn his second All-Australian guernsey, Cameron expects the 28-year-old to take time returning to his best.
“He’s fit and hard and ready to go. He’ll take a week or two in terms of match fitness, that’s just natural because he hasn’t been able to play a game,” he said.
“We just want him to come in and play his role which is energy, compete ahead of the footy, there’ll be some dynamic stuff there we know he’s capable of.
“Equally, his power running is one of his greatest assets, which we need in our front end, and we expect him to deliver on that on the weekend.”
Cameron sees a rare Friday night home game as an opportunity for the Giants to regain form.
“It is a huge game (with) all those elements that come into the Friday night game,” he said.
“We’re back in Canberra, we haven’t been here for a while, Friday night footy is big, as we know, we requested a game, we’ve been delivered that game.
“St Kilda are 4-1, they’re in the four. Toby’s back and we’ve been a little bit off our form.
“It’s massive, it’s huge. It’s not just this week, but the next month is huge for us, starting on Friday night. What better way to showcase our footy club?”
