It was the game that turned the GIANTS’ season around.
On the back of a miserable May that saw the GIANTS lose four consecutive matches, they made the daunting trip to Adelaide Oval with form – and history – against them.
The club had only triumphed over Adelaide once in its history, and never at the South Australian venue.
But something special happened in the round 11 twilight match.
Despite conceding their lead to the Crows early in the final quarter, the GIANTS fought back to record a memorable 16-point win that coach Leon Cameron called “one of our better wins”.
Two final-quarter goals to Jeremy Cameron and one to Zac Langdon saw the GIANTS come from behind to not just snap their losing streak, but kickstart a run that would see them win nine of 10 matches and feature in the 2018 Toyota AFL Finals Series.
Tim Taranto, who played a key role in the win by laying an equal game-high nine tackles, said the victory was “one of the best games I’ve played in at the GIANTS”, considering the importance of the outcome and playing under the duress of a hostile crowd at a difficult venue.
“We’d come off a poor month of football,” he said. “Going to Adelaide, we knew they’d had it over us the last few times, especially at Adelaide.
“It’s a tough ground to play at, especially (with) 50-odd thousand fans screaming against you.
“But Leon really put it to us and said this is a game (where) we really need to step up, put the pressure on them and get the job done.
“We came out as a group and played one of the best games we’ve played, and got up by a couple of goals in the end.
“It was the turning point in the season for us and got us going.”
The pure elation and excitement was plain to see in the visitor changerooms after the match, with potentially the largest victory circle in GIANTS’ history as coaches and staff joined in to belt out the club song.
“It was a huge circle,” Taranto said. “All the coaches, the support staff and (chairman) Tony Shepherd and (CEO) Dave Matthews were all in there and we were getting around each other.
“You could just tell it was a very important win and one that we were very proud of as a club.
“It probably just filled us with a bit more confidence. We were probably a bit low on confidence the month prior to that.
“It kind of kick-started that and we just started saying, let’s just play and see what happens, and things started to turn for us.”
A Season Defined is a nine-part series that will be released over the coming weeks, taking a look back at some of the key moments from the GIANTS’ rollercoaster 2018 season.
