Sprays, support and starting an AFL club from scratch: GWS Giants farewell coach Leon Cameron

Next weekend, for instance, Cameron’s whole focus will be ferrying his children Jack, Harry and Millie to sport.

Jack Cameron, the youngest, wearing his Giants playing jumper and holding a well-kicked footy, looked sad.

Then again, no one looked happy.

GWS had just been beaten by Carlton, fallen to 2-7, and Cameron, the man to lead the club to the verge of ultimate success, was saying goodbye.

Mind you, this was far from a morbid affair. Not sacked or let go. It was as mutual as a parting of ways can be.

Occasionally, you hear about those divorces with no hate, no lawyers, no arguments over bank accounts, favourite towels and who gets the dog. This was one of those separations.

The Giants pride themselves on being a family club.

One decade old, plonked in the middle of a part of Sydney where AFL footy is considered to be not only an interstate sport, but an intergalactic one, they had to be a tight unit.

It was one in, all in. The scene inside the rooms told you of just that.

*****

Ten minutes after the final siren confirmed that Carlton was taking a step forward, Giants players slumped into the chairs in their lockers and the club’s extended family looked on from doorways.

Leon Cameron’s mum Annette was there. She’d been picked up from Warrnambool and taken to Melbourne Airport for the game by the mum of Giants CEO Dave Matthews. Family club, remember?

Everyone settled in the rooms and listened to the figurehead of the club for the last nine years quietly convey his feelings.

Not ranting, no raving, no tears. It was more emotional before the game, said Cameron later. After the game, he was feeling the result too much to get sentimental.

“Got beaten in contested ball minus 36,” Cameron mused to reporters. “We’re normally dishing that out.”

For the players, fond memories were easy to find from what Cameron has dished up to them, as they turned into men, away from home comforts.

*****

The vast majority of Giants players have come from the hotbeds of the best footy playgrounds in Australia. Meaning, not Sydney.

So being a coach wasn’t just teaching a kid how to play footy. It was also helping them grow up in a new city with the ‘go-home’ factor lurking like a little devil on the shoulder of every young man drafted.

Josh Kelly came from Melbourne as an 18-year-old, and Stephen Coniglio, as a 17-year-old from Perth.

“It’s been a weird week,” Kelly tells CodeSports.

“For a lot of us we rocked up as kids, and Leon’s impact on our lives has been massive.

“The values he stands for, the workrate and selflessness as a father, as a coach, is really embedded inside us.”

Coniglio, now sharing the GWS captaincy with Kelly and Toby Greene, credits Cameron for a lot of his development as a player.

“He’s always been our coach, and when you’re growing up interstate as a young bloke, he coached you as a person,” Coniglio says.

“I was struggling in my third or fourth year about, not where I fit in, but how I was going to get better and really crack it. He was great in figuring out what I do when I’m at my best, making it clear and simple and backing me in.

In a week when Cameron is detaching himself from a lucrative and captivating job, there is genuine empathy. Everyone speaks highly of the coach, which says a lot about his honest approach.

“Leon would have hard conversations with you, challenging conversations,” Kelly says.

“Always big expectations week in week out. I look back on that now and no doubt it’s made me the footy player I am today, embedded resilience into me.”

Coniglio credits Cameron’s full-on motivational speeches as cornerstones in the Giants 2016 and 2019 finals runs, the latter eventuating the club’s lone grand final appearance.

“He always found a way to make us the underdogs and hit in the group,” Coniglio reflects.

*****

With the inner sanctum of a footy club being the closed shop it needs to be, detailed insight into the personalities of big players and coaches is hard to come by.

Amazon’s 2020 documentary Making Their Mark highlighted Cameron’s workings in dealing with, at the time, an underperforming unit who were miles off being the grand final-making team they were a season earlier.

The result was footage of Cameron going off his head, frequent sprays laced with more swear words than a Rodney Rude chorus.

It was harsh, and not altogether linked to reality, claims Kelly.

“It wasn’t an ideal cut of him, that’s for sure! And we didn’t have the greatest year that year, so probably a few sprays to capture but Leon’s always balanced that out,” Kelly says.

“Gave a good spray, and quick to nurture on the other side.”

Conigilio confirms there was always balance, and fairness that came with Cameron’s methods.

“There’s been some great sprays. Pre-season camps in Noosa, last session of the week before we had a break, Leon always worked you hard and found a way to challenge you mentally, but then afterwards you’d be sharing a beer before a Christmas break” Conigilio says.

The 2022 group know, though, they’ve had a role in what transpired this week.

“We have to all look at ourselves. As a senior player, we should take that personally, look within the group, myself included. Then with Toby and Josh, then the group, figure out how we turn this season around,” Conigilio says.

“From a human sense, always had that care factor and that balance in what he did. It’s why we are a family football club, always been one of our values.

*****

Cameron finished his quiet speech in the rooms to players and staff with a simple, “Really appreciate everything, thanks for everything.”

He was handed a bottle of 18-year old scotch as the first parting gift. He’ll enjoy that almost as much as making 18 year-old kids from intestate grown men and footy players.

And for his first footy-free weekend, he’ll enjoy being dad to his actual children, while checking up on his other kids.

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“I’ll have the phone on, seeing how the Giants go against the Eagles,” Cameron admitted.

“It’s a long time as the head coach of a footy club, had a great ride, disappointed we didn’t get the ultimate, but really proud we’ve got a good club and built really good friendships.”