GREATER Western Sydney is reaping the rewards of the faith it has shown in Aaron Cadman as the emerging forward becomes critical to the side’s finals hopes, Giants coach Adam Kingsley said after a win over Geelong at Engie Stadium.
The 21-year-old put the Giants in command with four goals when the match was up for grabs in the third term, then booted two more majors after the last break to help steer his side to a 26-point victory over the Cats on Saturday.
The former No.1 pick finished with a career-high six majors as he showed increasing confidence while flying to take eight marks and made the most of his opportunities near goal in a breakout display.
“If you wind back the tape, I feel like I’ve been saying, ‘We’re really happy with him, he’s just got to finish a little bit better, whether that’s marking or whether that’s kicking goals’,” Kingsley said. “But he keeps putting himself in a position to be able to win the ball, present, compete, support and help the guys at his feet.
“This has been building for a long while. Now he’s probably getting the rewards for all that effort in terms of goals. But there’s a lot more to his game than just goals at the moment. He’s a really important player to our club and the way that we play.”
Kingsley was full of praise for another former No.1 pick as Lachie Whitfield celebrated his 250th match in style with a game-high 32 disposals.
Whitfield was made to wait to reach the milestone after sustaining a concussion against Gold Coast in round 15.
A fourth straight victory over the Cats keeps the Giants within touching distance of the top four while Kingsley expects former captain Stephen Coniglio and gun defender Sam Taylor to press their claims to face Essendon on Thursday night.
“It was a typical performance from one of our stars,” Kingsley said of Whitfield. “It was really nice for him to get back to that level of play in what was such a really important game, not only for him but for us.
“We want to celebrate the game in the right way for him, but we also knew it was an incredibly important game against the Cats to continue to try and climb up that ladder. He led the way for us, it was a fantastic game.”
While Cadman shone for the Giants their former star forward Jeremy Cameron had a day to forget on his return to the Showgrounds for the first time as an opposition player.
Cameron booted an early goal but finished with only five disposals, with Cats coach Chris Scott later revealing that the 32-year-old “got a knock to his hip” before being careful not to suggest that sore players might have cost his side the game.
With Cameron restricted in his movement, Shannon Neale stepped up with an equal career-high five goals including a set shot from the wrong side of the boundary line that helped slow the Giants’ early charge.
“He’s got some strengths. One of them definitely is that he’s a beautiful kick for goal, technically perfect, or pretty close to perfect, in my opinion,” Scott said.
“He’s 203 centimetres, great athlete. He’s sort of helped us change the way we play a little bit, without having a big body of work of really dominating in the air, which we know he can do.
“I think all those things, if you put them together, he could be a formidable player and we saw good signs of that.”
