And while he sat out the Giants’ preliminary final loss to the Bulldogs on Saturday night due to suspension, there is no doubt his impact on the young Giants throughout his first season at the club has been profound.
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The AFL allocates 15,000 tickets to each Grand Final teams’ members while AFL corporate packages costing upwards of $1600 are available to anybody, which, the AFLFA says, is why it has launched a petition to increase the competing club members to share 50,000 Grand Final tickets.
Clay Smith booted four goals in the first half to give the Bulldogs a nine-point lead at the major break.
Smith was wearing a black armband, and told the broadcaster after the match: “It’s unbelievable, mate, we were written off probably at the start of the finals series, going over there (to Subiaco to play West Coast)”.
“We’d been playing good footy up until then and I guess we just didn’t turn up to play against GWS. I lost one of my best mates on Monday during the week, so this game’s for Daisy and I f-ing love him”.
The preliminary final, which was broadcast by the Seven Network and simulcast on Fox Footy, was the second-most watched game in AFL history outside of a Grand Final.
While the Giants got out to a 14-point lead early in the fourth quarter, neither team was able to build a comfortable advantage.
For all the talk about Sydney’s host of first-year players and how the team has changed enormously since the 2014 grand final loss to Hawthorn, the Swans have no shortage of men who haver attended the big dance.
The visitors somehow took control of the see-sawing epic thanks to clutch goals from Dickson, Marcus Bontempelli and Zaine Cordy. The Bulldogs have done it the hard way after finishing seventh on the ladder.
Sydney have since looked a different side in knock-out final wins over Adelaide and Geelong.
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Smith, Luke Dahlhaus, Josh Dunkley, Caleb Daniel and Liam Picken were all influential for the Bulldogs, while Shane Mumford dominated the ruck contests with 47 hitouts.
