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Socceroos watch party? AFL “missed a trick”, say Giants stars
Andrew Slevison • June 10th, 2026 10:46 am
GWS captain Toby Greene pitched a great idea for this weekend.
The FIFA World Cup kicks off later this week with the Socceroos scheduled to play Turkey in Vancouver at 2pm AEST on Sunday.
The problem for Greene, a football tragic, is that his Giants play St Kilda at Marvel Stadium from 3:15pm AEST.
Greene reckons it would have been clever if the AFL scheduled the Saints-Giants game for 11am before staging a Socceroos Watch Party at Marvel from 2pm.
“I think our game should’ve started at 11am on Sunday, because the Socceroos play at 2pm,” Greene said on the Ausmerican Aces podcast.
“They could’ve done a Socceroos Watch Party at Marvel after our game. I would’ve f---en stayed and watched it.
“No one’s going to watch our game! I wouldn’t watch our game. I love footy footy as much as anyone but I’m watching the Socceroos on Sunday if I had the choice.
“I just don’t know why they’d even try and bother competing with it, or just embrace it and go, ‘Let’s start the Giants and Saints at 11am and then maybe have a Marvel Watch Party’.
“I reckon it would’ve been a great idea.”
Greene joked that he’ll be staying in the rooms during the warm-up so he can keep an eye on the Socceroos.
“I’m not warming up, I’m staying in the change rooms with the TV on,” he laughed.
“They should at least put it on the big screen before the game, surely there do that.”
Injured Giants teammate Tom Green, also a massive lover of the world game, reckons the AFL “missed a trick” by not featuring the Socceroos somewhere on Sunday.
“I’m actually not too sure how it went down with (Giants) head office and the thing is I don’t want to find out because I actually agree with him,” Green said on SEN Breakfast.
“Toby is prone to a couple of mad schemes that aren’t always the best thing ever, but I kind of agree. That’s one where everyone is going to be watching the World Cup, it’s such an amazing event and we all want to get behind the Socceroos.
“Why wouldn’t you adjust those times so we can do a little bit of both? The AFL is going to look after the scheduling and getting all that right.
“But I feel like they might have missed a trick there. It would be nice to be able to watch both.”
Green says all at the Giants are fully invested in the World Cup.
“Absolutely everyone,” he said vehemently.
“We’ve got our World Cup sweep with full buy-in, absolutely every single person is part of a group where we’ll pick our teams.
“We’ve already had our draft order done and we’ll pick some teams. There’s been trades, there’s been dinners thrown on the table, there’s been a few other sketchy things that Toby has thrown in, trying to get some deals done.
“We’ve got complete buy-in and everyone will be off to Ultra Football in Alexandria soon to get their football jerseys to support their teams.
“We’ve had great buy-in and that’s part of the reason why I’m saying I reckon we need to adjust a few of those things so we can watch.”
The Socceroos are up against Turkey this Sunday to kick off their Group D campaign before meeting hosts USA on Saturday, June 20 and Paraguay on Friday, June 26.
