Phil Davis remembers when the GIANTS weren’t really a team yet.
There was no history, no established culture - just a loose collection of players, many barely out of school, trying to build something from scratch in unfamiliar territory.
As one of the club’s inaugural co-captains, Davis was right in the middle of it.
Now, 15 years on, it’s not the wins or finals campaigns that stand out most - it’s how that group of strangers helped build a club with one of the strongest reputations in the competition despite its chaotic beginnings.
A Club Built Overnight
“November, 2011...you’re testing me,” Davis laughed when asked to recall the very early days of the league’s newest club.
“I remember there being lots of young kids floating around.
“A young, close-knit group of people that spent so much time together, all coming together at once, which is a very rare and unique thing.
“That’s probably my biggest reflection - just this assortment of people coming together in one place - there was a lot of enthusiasm and youth, and unfamiliarity.”
Why He Took the Leap
A top 10 pick and a highly regarded young defender touted as a potential future captain of the Crows after just 18 games, Davis made headlines in late 2011 as the first player to announce that he would be joining the GIANTS ahead of their inaugural season.
For Davis, who was just 20 at the time, the once in a lifetime opportunity was too good to pass up.
“I was reflecting on this the other day,” he said of his decision to join the GIANTS.
“I think for me, one of the biggest pieces was the access to talent. It was something historic - it took what Gold Coast had to another level.
“It was going to be a different list build, which was really exciting for me, and the chance to grow with the talent as well. I was still young and very far away from being the finished product myself.
“There was also an element of growing the game, which was appealing.
“Taking the game and making it bigger and broader, and going back to where I was born and where I’d played a little bit of football in [Canberra] - that was also appealing.”
Reality Hits Hard
While Davis was a realist in the difficulties the club would face in its early days, he admits even he underestimated how hard the struggles would be.
“The list of challenges was far more significant than I thought.
“I’d done some maths in my head and thought it was going to be challenging… but it definitely outweighed all of that. It was more significant than I initially factored in.
“That was from everything, like trying to put together a list of 55 players, having a young coaching group and trying to get that to work, and just the pure volume of players we had was significant.
“Early on the facilities weren’t at AFL standard and access to grounds wasn’t satisfactory.
“There were all these challenges, which when you're trying to compete against the best, we weren't even at the start line, we had a significant handicap just to begin.
“Then you've got a bunch of 25- to-30-year-olds who'd never stepped foot in an elite environment. It's just so much inexperience, that made it very difficult.
“Then also, you’re going into an area [Western Sydney] where there's close to zero awareness. You’ve got expat Victorians up in the Gold Coast which makes it a lot easier to start [an expansion club], while we were in complete foreign territory.
“Then you pair that with the other team in town [the Swans] who were not exactly excited or thrilled to have us there. It’s fair to say there were a lot of challenges.”
The Year Everything Changed
After registering two wins in their first season and just one win in their second season in 2013, pressure was mounting for the GIANTS entering their third season.
For Davis, 2014 loomed as a defining moment for the club.
“I thought 2014 was a make-or-break year… I was pretty nervous after 2013. It went so badly,” Davis said frankly.
But then came the turning point.
Half a dozen victories. Much more competitive performances. And a statement victory over the big brother to open the season.
“2014 was the most significant year in my mind.
“We won six games and things looked a lot better. We also beat a very good Swans side to start the season. So there were a lot of real positives that year.
“I think 2014 was very much, you know, we're on the precipice of, well, what's this actually going to look like.
“Beating the Swans and winning six games, that was very big for us, and then obviously it catapulted us to 11 wins the next year.”
A New Home
Behind the scenes, a key piece of the puzzle had also fallen into place ahead of the defining 2014 season, with the club moving from Blacktown to their new high-performance facility in Olympic Park.
“I think one of the most significant shifts was the facility. It started to help us even up the playing field,” Davis said.
“It’s a two-part thing. One - you can physically and mentally prepare effectively and efficiently, but also secondary, it’s about retention. It’s very hard to tell a young athlete you’re going to give them the best opportunity when other clubs have state-of-the-art facilities and you’re nowhere near that. But our new facilities certainly helped combat that.”
Building More Than Talent
While the new facilities, as well as the incredible depth of young talent and their natural development, was crucial to the club’s rise out of mediocrity, Davis says it’s the type of people who the club continued to bring in which was arguably the most critical element to the club’s eventual success. And a philosophy that has defined the club for 15 years.
“The biggest unlock has been recruiting and retaining the right type of character.
“The right type of character are the people who take football very seriously, but don’t take themselves too seriously.
“I think what that does is it gives you a level of humility and the ability to come together and worry about the collective.
“It’s really important when it comes to the football side that you take yourself seriously around a desire to win and a desire to prepare correctly and the desire to drive others to come with you.
“I think we've always had that in abundance and it's been one of the real staples of what we expect in the characters that come through the club.
“You look at the people like Cal Ward, Tom Scully, Stephen Coniglio, and Josh Kelly who are just very humble leaders and very good players. That's set a very good standard.
“We've always driven to have a very hardworking, competitive, humble, respectful group, and I think that's carried through [to today].”
A Model of Consistency
Since the defining 2014 season, the GIANTS have become one of the AFL’s most consistent sides, winning 11, 16, 14, 13, and 13 games from 2015-2019, culminating in the club’s first ever Grand Final appearance in 2019.
That consistency continues today, with the GIANTS having made finals in eight out of the last 10 seasons – a remarkable feat for the AFL’s youngest club.
“Eight out of ten is pretty good… I think we’d be hard-pressed to find many teams who have won more games than us in the last ten years,” Davis said.
But despite the sustained success, for Davis, the club’s ability to contend almost every season isn’t what he’s most proud of after 15 seasons – it’s the reputation that the club has built.
“If you speak to anyone in the competition who’s been involved with the GIANTS, they always speak about it glowingly.
“There's a lot of conversations I've had with players that have been at other clubs or involved in other clubs, that they always reflect on what a great place the GIANTS is.
“That's really important, because you've got to enjoy where you work. To see how highly regarded we are in our environment is a really nice thing to be a part of.”
Still More to Come
Despite the constant finals campaigns and the glowing reputation, Davis sees the GIANTS’ journey as far from unfinished.
“The next step is obviously more success on the field. We’re all striving to win a couple more games, now, and then in September,” he said.
Fifteen years on, the GIANTS are no longer the new kids on the block - they’re a club built on strong foundations, clear identity, and sustained success. And with their best still ahead, the future looks brighter than ever.
