GWS are adamant they won’t have to tone down their aggression for Saturday’s AFL showdown with Brisbane despite two players being charged after a feisty elimination final.
Toby Greene was charged with serious misconduct against Marcus Bontempelli and fellow forward Harry Himmelberg with striking the same Dogs’ player.
“I think finals football is tough and it’s contested. We were trying to win the ball as much as we could,” Giants tagger Matt de Boer said.
“I copped a few whacks as well and there was a Bulldog (Zaine Cordy) fined for hitting me.
“I think we were both out there to try and win the football and our contested ball won out.”
Ace tagger de Boer helped to limit Bontempelli to 13 touches, his lowest game tally since 2017.
Bontempelli was booed by GWS fans over an incident three weeks earlier which left Giants key back Nick Haynes with a larynx injury.
De Boer felt there was nothing untoward in the Giants’ treatment of Bontempelli, although they were aware of his incident involving Haynes.
‘”I think it might have got a mention but there was 21 other Bulldogs players out there and their midfield is stacked,” de Boer said.
“They had (Josh Dunkley and (Jack) Macrae running around as well, so the big focus for us is contested ball, to be completely frank.”
Half-back Zac Williams, who plays his 100th game on Saturday, doubted GWS would need to scale down their approach.
“I think we’ve just got to come out with the same mindset that we’re going to have a good crack and I’m pretty sure that Brisbane will do the same thing,” Williams said.
“I think when we come out and play aggressive, that’s when we do play our best footy.”
The 24-year-old speedster has missed just two matches this year after not playing last season until the finals because of a serious achilles injury.
He performed well in the midfield when GWS were depleted in that area for a few weeks and wouldn’t mind another run there in his milestone game.
”l mentioned it to (coach) Leon (Cameron) ‘It’s my 100th game this weekend. Any chance you can reward me by playing in the midfield’?” Williams said.
“We’ll see how far that goes through the week and I’ll be in his ear, I’m sure.
“But playing off the half-back, I can see the whole game from that position, so I love that position.”
Another potential assignment might be lining up on an old adversary, Lions All-Star forward Charlie Cameron.
“When he played at Adelaide, we were both pretty young at the time, so we played a lot on each other then,” Williams said.