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Leon Cameron
Leon Cameron
	Cameron in April 2018
Personal information
Full name	Leon Cameron
Date of birth	2 September 1972 (age 52)
Original team(s)	South Warrnambool Football Club
Draft	No. 7, 1988 national draft
Height	185 cm (6 ft 1 in)
Weight	82 kg (181 lb)
Position(s)	Wing/Defender
Club information
Current club	Greater Western Sydney
Playing career1
Years	Club
1990–1999	Footscray/Western Bulldogs
2000–2003	Richmond
Total
Coaching career3
Years	Club
2014–2022	Greater Western Sydney
	1 Playing statistics correct to the end of 2003. 3 Coaching statistics correct as of Round 9, 2022.
Career highlights
	Charles Sutton Medal 1993;
	Sources: AFL Tables, AustralianFootball.com

Leon Cameron (born 2 September 1972) is a former Australian rules footballer who is the former senior coach of the Greater Western Sydney Giants (GWS) in the Australian Football League (AFL). His AFL playing career lasted from 1990 to 2003 and included 256 senior games – 172 for the Western Bulldogs and 84 for Richmond.

AFL playing career

Footscray/Western Bulldogs

Cameron was recruited from South Warrnambool Football Club with the 7th selection in the 1988 National draft for the Footscray Football Club (Bulldogs). He played 172 games and kicked 68 goals for the Bulldogs between 1990 and 1999 and won the Charles Sutton Medal in 1993 and The Age Footballer of the Year award in 1995.^[1]^[2]

Richmond

In 2000, Cameron was traded to the Richmond Football Club where he played a further 84 games and kicked 40 goals over four seasons before retiring at the end of the 2003 AFL season.^[3]^[4]^[5]

AFL coaching career

Assistant coaching roles

After retirement Cameron returned to the Western Bulldogs as an assistant coach from 2004 to the end of 2010. In September 2010 he accepted an assistant coaching role with Hawthorn,^[6] playing an instrumental role in the club as they reached the 2012 AFL Grand Final, which was lost to the Sydney Swans. It was Cameron's first Grand Final as an AFL player or coach after three preliminary final losses as a player (two at the Western Bulldogs and one at Richmond) and another four as an assistant coach (three at the Bulldogs and one at Hawthorn).^[7]

Cameron then joined Greater Western Sydney as the senior assistant coach for the 2013 season with a contract that appointed him as the senior coach from 2014.^[8]

First senior coaching role

Greater Western Sydney

On 1 September 2013, after Kevin Sheedy coached his 679th and final game as a senior coach in the VFL-AFL, the competing teams formed a guard of honour for Sheedy and a handover ceremony took place with Sheedy passing the baton to Leon Cameron who succeeded him as senior coach.^[9] Cameron's contract, signed in October 2012, stipulated one year as assistant coach under senior coach Sheedy and then 3 years as the senior coach.^[10]

Cameron's tenure saw the Giants reach five out of a possible six finals series between 2016 and 2021, the most memorable among those being the Giants' narrow preliminary final loss to eventual premiers the Western Bulldogs, as well as Greater Western Sydney's inaugural grand final appearance in 2019, where they were defeated by Richmond by 89 points.^[11]^[12]

Despite the Giants making the 2021 AFL finals series, Cameron resigned as senior coach of GWS Giants on 12 May 2022 after eight years in the senior coaching role. This followed a string of poor on-field results for the Giants, and saw Cameron replaced by assistant coach Mark McVeigh as GWS caretaker senior coach for the rest of the 2022 season, following a farewell game against Carlton in Round 9, 2022.^[13]^[14]^[15]^[16]^[17]^[18]^[19]^[20]^[21] In the match, GWS lost by a margin of 30 points, and Cameron left the field through a guard of honour from both sides.^[22]^[23]

During Leon Cameron's tenure with the Giants, he became associated with the phrase "Phucemol" during the 2020 season at the Gold Coast hub. This expression was intended to ignite a sense of resilience among the players, encouraging them to disregard external opinions. Unfortunately, the phrase did not achieve the desired impact.

Statistics

Playing statistics

^[24]

**Legend**
G	Goals	K	Kicks	D	Disposals	T	Tackles
B	Behinds	H	Handballs	M	Marks


Season	Team	No.	Games	Totals							Averages (per game)							Votes
Season	Team	No.	Games	G	B	K	H	D	M	T	G	B	K	H	D	M	T	Votes
1990	Footscray	18	20	8	10	258	129	387	74	13	0.4	0.5	12.9	6.5	19.4	3.7	0.7	10
1991	Footscray	18	19	10	11	241	79	320	57	10	0.5	0.6	12.7	4.2	16.8	3.0	0.5	2
1992	Footscray	18	3	0	0	22	7	29	1	0	0.0	0.0	7.3	2.3	9.7	0.3	0.0	0
1993	Footscray	18	19	8	11	314	123	437	59	24	0.4	0.6	16.5	6.5	23.0	3.1	1.3	14
1994	Footscray	18	24	13	24	328	136	464	97	25	0.5	1.0	13.7	5.7	19.3	4.0	1.0	13
1995	Footscray	18	23	7	19	336	135	471	85	24	0.3	0.8	14.6	5.9	20.5	3.7	1.0	7
1996	Footscray	18	8	3	1	74	28	102	22	9	0.4	0.1	9.3	3.5	12.8	2.8	1.1	0
1997	Western Bulldogs	18	17	6	10	207	59	266	62	7	0.4	0.6	12.2	3.5	15.6	3.6	0.4	3
1998	Western Bulldogs	18	22	6	5	276	90	366	80	19	0.3	0.2	12.5	4.1	16.6	3.6	0.9	0
1999	Western Bulldogs	18	17	7	11	164	63	227	57	6	0.4	0.6	9.6	3.7	13.4	3.4	0.4	2
2000	Richmond	15	19	3	3	257	79	336	73	19	0.2	0.2	13.5	4.2	17.7	3.8	1.0	3
2001	Richmond	15	25	19	6	344	139	483	111	33	0.8	0.2	13.8	5.6	19.3	4.4	1.3	11
2002	Richmond	15	19	2	10	184	91	275	59	23	0.1	0.5	9.7	4.8	14.5	3.1	1.2	2
2003	Richmond	15	21	16	4	175	57	232	90	15	0.8	0.2	8.3	2.7	11.0	4.3	0.7	1
Career			256	108	125	3180	1215	4395	927	227	0.4	0.5	12.4	4.7	17.2	3.6	0.9	68

Coaching statistics

^[25]

Legend
W	Wins	L	Losses	D	Draws	W%	Winning percentage	LP	Ladder position	LT	League teams

Season	Team	Games	W	L	D	W %	LP	LT
2014	Greater Western Sydney	22	6	16	0	27.3%	16	18
2015	Greater Western Sydney	22	11	11	0	50.0%	11	18
2016	Greater Western Sydney	24	17	7	0	70.8%	4	18
2017	Greater Western Sydney	25	15	8	2	60.0%	4	18
2018	Greater Western Sydney	24	14	9	0	58.3%	7	18
2019	Greater Western Sydney	26	16	10	1	61.5%	6	18
2020	Greater Western Sydney	17	8	9	0	47.1%	10	18
2021	Greater Western Sydney	24	12	11	1	52.1%	7	18
2022^[a]	Greater Western Sydney	9	2	7	0	22.2%	15	18
Career totals		193	101	88	4	53.37%

Notes

^ Leon Cameron stood down as coach of GWS at the conclusion of round 9, 2022. At this point in the season, GWS were 15th on the ladder with two wins and seven losses.