GWS Giants forward Jonathan Giles celebrates a goal. Picture: Mark Evans. Source: The Daily Telegraph
YOU'D think seven years' worth of water under the bridge would be enough for Jonathan Giles to stop worrying about exceeding the expectations of old coach Mark Williams.
But as if fate always meant for it to happen, Giles and the man who delisted him without a single game to his name in four years at Port Adelaide were reunited at Greater Western Sydney.
"I remember speaking to Choco at the start of last year (2012) and I think he said something like `10-15 games would be a great season for you'," Giles said.
"And I remember thinking `well that would be great but I want to be the number one ruckman at the Giants'."
Six months later, Giles had proven that beyond doubt.
He played 20 games, finished fifth in the best-and-fairest, topped its Brownlow Medal count, ranked first for contested marks, second for hardball gets and third for clearances.
League-wide he was the No.1 ruckman for score involvements.
The result was a new three-year contract.
Not bad for a bloke who team-mate Dean Brogan described as "a tall skinny kid with no engine" in their former life together at Alberton.
"He always had skill and was a good kick, but he struggled in the ruck with his body," Brogan recalls.
"We used to throw him around at training."
Not any more with Giles a hulking 200cm and 103kg powerhouse.
"It makes it interesting at training these days, I think it's payback for all those years at Port," Brogan said.
"He's thick and super strong, he's one of the strongest guys I've come up against.
"With my (basketball) background, I understand how long it takes and how hard it is for ruckmen.
"Now he's 25 and that's the ripe age for when the body catches up with the mind."
When Giles was drafted to GWS in 2010 he admitted he was unsure how his relationship with assistant coach Williams would work.
"We always got along well but never had a huge relationship because I never played any games," Giles said.
"There were no ill-feelings but at the end of the day I got delisted and he was the head coach.
"He gave me a call when I got drafted (to GWS) to say well done and we had a chat about what happened at Port.
"And in the end it was a great two years with him at the club."
The turning point for Giles after being delisted in 2009 was making the "tough" decision to leave his SANFL home at Central District, where he was a dual premiership player, and join Sturt. But the bigger decision was to put himself through a punishing training regime with fitness coach Daniel Buberis.
"We trained every day," Buberis said.
"In the past he'd been told not to run hills and on the first day we went out and smashed 10 repeats up Montifiore Hill and he really pushed himself."
Buberis said Giles was determined to finish every session.
So much so he remembers tying a rope around Giles to drag him around the final laps of an interval run.
"Because that was the level he had to get to," Buberis said.
"That was probably one of his hardest sessions and mine as well because towing a 100kg bloke around an oval is not easy."
Having grasped his second chance at AFL level so emphatically last year, Giles suddenly became a wanted man.
So for the first time in his career he started this season with the job security of a three-year contract with GWS.
Although it took longer than expected to get the deal done, Giles said he was never leaving the Giants.
"Through the media your name gets thrown around and that's not what I wanted," he said.
"It can be frustrating because my family kept asking `what's going on?' but staying with the Giants was always my number one priority."
Now his priority is improving as rapidly as his exciting young team which plays Port Adelaide tonight.
"I was given the opportunity and I wanted to repay the faith and show why they picked me, but also to show myself I could play at that level," Giles said.
"To play 20 games last year was fantastic and now I've got to build on my base because the minute you take the foot off the pedal you're going to fall behind.
"Last year as a club we were the new kids on the block and this year teams will start to knuckle down on us, so we've got to keep working harder than we did last year."
And it's fair to say that knuckling down to hard work has become Giles' strong point.
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