A disappointed Mark McVeigh has delivered a stunning rebuke to the misfiring GWS Giants after their 73-point belting by cross-city rivals Sydney at the SCG.
Mark McVeigh has delivered a brutal assessment of Greater Western Sydney's performance and called out a lack of effort from the majority of his players following their 73-point AFL thrashing by Sydney.
The in-form Swans outplayed the Giants from the start then cruised to a 17.10 (112) to 5.9 (39) victory at the SCG on Saturday.
The Giants (5-14) were already out of finals contention heading into the Sydney Derby and are in unfamiliar territory with little more than pride to play for in the remaining rounds.
"It's extremely disappointing. It's very unlike the Giants. These are the games that you have to get up for and our club has prided ourselves on that for a long period of time," Giants coach McVeigh said.
"There is just the unfortunate part of dealing with whether players have checked out or not, and that's as honest as you possibly can be.
"If I look at the list, I reckon there was probably eight players that went to the wall today, you talk about (Josh) Kelly, (Lachie) Whitfield, (Harry) Perryman, (Sam) Taylor, (Callan) Ward, (Jesse) Hogan, (Toby) Greene and (Adam) Kennedy.
"I thought all of those eight players fought right through to the end and tried and gave absolutely everything. But eight players doing that, that's not enough."
The Giants have several players out of contract at the end of the season including midfielder Tim Taranto and McVeigh is concerned it may be starting to weigh on their performances.
"Unfortunately we're dealing with some players that probably aren't sure of their future but we're also in unchartered waters in terms of not being anywhere near finals contention. They're struggling to deal with that," he said.
"We've got to find the players that are going to fight right to the end."
The Swans had too many contributors in the midfield and led 416-301 for disposals, 150-131 in contested possessions and 44-34 in clearances while also beating the Giants in the tackle count.
While McVeigh was disappointed in the efforts of the midfield he singled out some of the Giants' better contributors on the day to also lead the club into a brighter future.
"There are some really good emerging leaders coming through our footy club and again I'll talk about Perryman and Taylor," McVeigh said.
"They are ready to take this club to a different standard. They're honest, their feedback is strong, they're not afraid to upset anyone and they want to win.
"The quicker those type of players can sit amongst our leaders, the better off we'll be."
