GWS has taken fans into the behind-the-scenes review of its semi-final loss to Brisbane, led by coach Adam Kingsley.
After a heartbreaking defeat in the first week of the finals to Sydney, the Giants were poised to march on to the penultimate weekend and face Geelong, leading by 44 points halfway through the third term.
However, a rampant Lions outfit cut the margin quickly, as a fourth Joe Daniher goal late in the final quarter gave the eventual 2024 premiers the lead and, ultimately, the win.
Amid the pre-season, Kingsley and his men endured rewatching the final moments of the painful defeat, with multiple players unable to watch, bowing their heads in disappointment.
However, a key theme from the Giant coach's speech was the need to put the club back into a position like that again, despite how much it hurts.
"Why would I show that?" Kingsley quizzed his men.
"Footy is f****** hard. Footy will break your heart. It happens.
"But we want to try and do is learn our lessons and move on. So that when the next time we're in this position, we can do a better job. We can get a better result. We can generate a different feeling out of the game.
"The worst thing that we can do is 'I never want to feel like that again and avoid being in that situation.
"That'll be an absolute f****** disaster. Your mindset has to be, 'We're getting back there without any guarantees'."
Since their inception in 2012, the Giants have risen to become one of the more consistent teams in the competition, making finals on seven occasions.
The expansion club has been on the back end of multiple gut-wrenching defeats, dating back to the 2016 preliminary final against the Western Bulldogs, the 2019 grand final loss to Richmond and the one-point preliminary final defeat to Collingwood in 2023.
During the review, Kingsley continued to ride home the
"Bust our a** over summer and through the season to make sure we put ourselves in this position again," Kingsley continued.
"A position that we may fail, but I'm pretty confident that if we execute the lessons we've learnt, we're going to be just fine.
"We will be."
The Giants are favoured to push for a maiden premiership in 2025, sitting third in theย Sportsbetย market, behind Brisbane and Hawthorn.
GWS added matchwinner Jake Stringer to the mix but were forced to watch star quartet - Harry Perryman (Collingwood), Isaac Cumming (Adelaide), James Peatling (Adelaide) and Nick Haynes (Carlton) - depart the club.
