# 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 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.

### 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 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).
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 Western Bulldogs, as well as Greater Western Sydney's inaugural grand final appearance in 2019, where they were defeated by Richmond 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.
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

| Season | Team | No. | Games | Totals | Totals | Totals | Totals | Totals | Totals | Totals | Averages (per game) | Averages (per game) | Averages (per game) | Averages (per game) | Averages (per game) | Averages (per game) | 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 | Career | 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

| 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 | Greater Western Sydney | 9 | 2 | 7 | 0 | 22.2% | 15 | 18 |
| Career totals | 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.