Playing a qualifying final in Adelaide is about as hostile as it gets for interstate AFL clubs, but GWS spearhead Jeremy Cameron is one out-of-towner relishing the daunting challenge his side faces next Thursday.
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Cameron, who grew up in Dartmoor in Victoria's south-west before being recruited by the Giants, considers the Adelaide Oval a "home crowd" despite the fact the majority in attendance will be jeering him and his teammates at every opportunity.
The winner of Adelaide and GWS progresses straight to a preliminary final, while the loser hosts a home knockout match against either Port Adelaide or West Coast.
Roughly a five-hour drive from the Adelaide Oval, Dartmoor is a village of around 300 people in the far-flung reaches of Victoria, about 50 kilometres from the South Australian border.
"I like to think of it as my home crowd because it's probably the closest, other than Geelong, it's roughly 4½ hours from where my parents live," Cameron said.
"I've got a lot of friends from school that have moved to Adelaide for uni. I'm looking forward to getting in front of the home crowd.
"It's an awesome arena to play in front of. A great oval and great deck and the crowd really turns up. It's obviously going to be 99 per cent Crows but it's awesome to play in front of that many people and in finals in particular.
"You want to perform in front of so many people, it's such an exciting thing for me."
The Giants recovered to finish this season with 14 wins and two draws, but dropped to fourth in the final round as they finished the season as they began with another poor performance, this time against the second-placed Geelong Cats.
"Momentum's a great thing. When you've got it it's awesome and you feel like you can't lose but you have an off game or a couple of off games in a row, it can get taken away so quick," Cameron said.
"That's how our last three weeks have been. We've played really well against Melbourne and West Coast, teams like that, and then we didn't play our best game on the weekend.
"We can bounce back, we've lost when we probably shouldn't have throughout the year at times. We got smashed round one against the Crows and bounced back really well the next week.
"We know we can do it. It's on the back of the season being so close, anyone can win on any given day against any opposition."
Cameron is back to full fitness after suffering back-to-back hamstring injuries in the latter stages of the regular season.
He's on track to finish as the Giants' leading goalkicker for a sixth-straight year having booted 45 already for the season, although Jonathon Patton (42) and Toby Greene (41) could yet surpass the man who has claimed the honour in every AFL season since the club's inception.
"It's great for Jon, he's had his injuries throughout his career, early on in his career. The playing group, the coaching staff and the guys around the club know he can play some really good football, it was just a matter of getting out on the park and putting games under his belt," Cameron said.
