GWS football boss Jason McCartney has backed interim coach Mark McVeigh's scathing assessment of the club in the wake of Round 20's 73-point loss to Sydney.
McVeigh was frank in his post-game press conference, labelling the Giants' performance against their cross-town rivals as disappointing and embarrassing as they fall to 16th spot on the ladder with a 5-14 win-loss record.
"They're far superior to us at the moment, clearly," McVeigh said post-game.
"There's just the unfortunate part of dealing with whether players have checked out or not.
"That's as honest as you possibly can be.
"I'm extremely disappointed with today, we embarrassed our club.
"I just think as a collective, we've got to shift the standards of our footy club and it's very hard to do on the run in-season.
"We need to reset and change a lot of things come pre-season. That's as blatantly honest as I can be.
"We've got to find the players that will fight right to the end."
Speaking to The Herald Sun, McCartney admitted that the performance was "uncharacteristic" from the Giants, but said he had no issue with McVeigh's strong post-game comments.
“That is the great thing about ‘Spike’, he is heart and soul and he’s desperate as we all are to fight to the end. He was disappointed yesterday. There wasn’t the effort and intent across the board. It’s unfamiliar territory for the group and maybe the coaching piece plays a part, but we aren’t happy with how we are going,” McCartney said.
“It was about the collective efforts of the group and we want to finish off the season strongly and we had good chats with the players about that. We haven’t had a performance like that since I don’t know when. It was uncharacteristic and we can do something about it.“
Giants coaching director Jimmy Bartel also backed the interim coach, agreeing with his assessment of the team's disappointing performance.
“He couldn’t have said it better. He is a guy who is passionate about his job and trying to make the team as good as he can in an interim role and I felt for the guy,” Bartel said.
“We never got going (this year). Injury, form and confidence rolled into one. The brand of footy they started off the year with, sides have worked it out pretty quickly.
“(It is) a strong stoppage game and in today’s footy if you don’t play the front-half turnover game you just invite the pressure.
“When they put in performances like that, I couldn’t agree with Mark any more. The numbers say that, their performance said that. He was spot on in his press conference.”
The Giants currently sit in 16th place on the ladder with just five wins to their name with three rounds remaining. The club is set to face Essendon, the Western Bulldogs and Fremantle on the run home.