Leon Cameron expects the "shining light" of the GWS Giants, young Canberran Tom Green's game will only level up again when he returns home hunting another win.
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The 21-year-old has been consistently impressive this season, but with his side's 1-5 start it did not draw attention until their 59-point thrashing of the Adelaide Crows.
He had 24 disposals and five clearances during the Giants' second win of the season.
The coach paid credit to Green as the reason his side's midfield "got going", and said he had no doubt his performance would lift again this week at Manuka Oval.
"He's a young leader of our footy club and he's only three years in," Cameron said.
"He just wants to be the best player he can possibly be and some of his execution with his hands last week, his decision making, was first class.
"But that's not just last week, it's been most of the year. He's had a terrific start to the year and he's been a really consistent, shining light for our group."
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The side head to the ACT, with one more win to their name than their last visit, on Saturday afternoon to face the Geelong Cats (who have a 4-3 record).
One of the key differences against the Crows was Toby Greene's goalkicking, and the Giants will need their skipper in form again against the Cats.
Cameron, however, reiterated there were a lot of contributors to last week's win.
"There's no doubt [Greene] adds a different dimension to our forward line when fully wound up, but by no means is he a one man band," he said.
"I thought our midfield probably played their best game for the year and gave a lot of supply to our forward line which allowed them to be dangerous."
Another boost for the Giants against the star-studded Cats will be the crowd. More than 11,000 Canberrans greeted the Giants for their first game of four at Manuka last month against the Saints, and Cameron wants a similar atmosphere.
"We look forward to coming down to Canberra, when we played down there a couple of Friday nights ago the crowd was full, it was fantastic atmosphere," he said.
"By all reports, on Saturday afternoon at four-thirty there's going to be a huge crowd as well.
"We understand the challenge to beat them is you're going to have to do everything right, but we look forward to that."
Cameron's future at the club remains unknown, not aided by the Giants' 2-5 start, but with no changes in his squad - for the first time in four years - things are looking up.
"The last four or five years we've had a number of injuries," he said.
"Continuity is great, what it does do is give the match committee a chance to pick on form rather than result of whether you lose players through injury each week.
"This week we can look at it and go, 'OK, if we want to make a change, we can make a change based on balance or form, not on injury'."
AFL ROUND 8
GWS Giants v Geelong Cats, 4.35pm on Saturday at Manuka Oval
Isobel Cootes
Sports reporter at The Canberra Times. A Novocastrian with a passion for football (or soccer as they call it in the capital) via The Examiner and The Port Lincoln Times.
Sports reporter at The Canberra Times. A Novocastrian with a passion for football (or soccer as they call it in the capital) via The Examiner and The Port Lincoln Times.
