Leon Cameron

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 .

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.

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.

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, playing an instrumental role in the club as they reached the 2012 AFL Grand Final, which was lost to the 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 ) and another four as an assistant coach (three at the Bulldogs and one at Hawthorn).

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.

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. 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.

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 , as well as Greater Western Sydney's inaugural grand final appearance in 2019, where they were defeated by by 89 points.

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. In the match, GWS lost by a margin of 30 points, and Cameron left the field through a guard of honour from both sides.

Post coaching career In September 2022, Cameron joined the Sydney Swans as coaching director of their Academy, before being promoted to Executive General Manager of Football in November 2023.

Statistics

Playing statistics

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 Statistics are correct to the end of 2024.