Madden looking to build on his ruck craft in second year at the Giants

After a delayed start to his first year at the Giants, Madden was looking to tick off a few major goals in his second season at GWS.

"Hopefully just to keep getting better," Madden said.

"Getting stronger and learning the structure, work on my ruck craft and just playing as good as I can.

"Hopefully I can potentially get in a couple of games, that's the goal."

Kieran Briggs established himself as the Giants number one ruckman at the back end of last year while GWS also has talented ruck Braydon Preuss on their list.

Madden wasn't entirely ruling out a debut at some stage this year, but said his focus was just to play the best footy he could at VFL level.

"Hopefully I'll plug away in the VFL for a bit," he said.

"I'm not praying on anyone's downfall and hopefully Briggsy goes well.

"I'll hope to play a game or two but we'll see how we go."

The Giants recently wrapped up their pre-season campaign and Madden said he was pretty pleased with how he went over the gruelling summer months on the track.

"It was actually pretty good," he said.

"I got most of it done and it was obviously a bit of a struggle because pre-season is.

"I sat out for a week when I had a bit of a hip problem, but apart from that I'm feeling as fit as I ever have so that's good."

After a delayed start to the season in 2023, Madden was able to string together 12 games in the VFL at the back end of the year.

He said it was good for his confidence to get that run of games in and he believed he was able to learn a fair bit in that limited spell.

"It was good and I started to get a bit more time in the ruck with Flynny (Matt Flynn) going forward," he said.

"I got to spend more time on my ruck craft and playing against some older blokes and stronger people.

"It was good to get used to it a bit and I'm starting to play more like how I wanna play.

"It was good to get some form late in the year."

Shane Mumford is the rucks coach at the Giants and Madden said it's been good for his development to learn from 'Mummy'.

"Shane's been good, he's good to learn off and he's obviously a bit of a gun player," he said.

"I've been picking his brains and Preussy and Briggsy are both great players themselves, I'm learning as much as I can off them which is helpful for my game."

Harvey Thomas recently made the move to Sydney after getting drafted by the Giants and Madden said the young midfielder had made a solid impression during his limited time at the club.

"He's moved in pretty smoothly," he said.

"He's going alright at the moment and hopefully he pushes his case for a debut early in the season.

"He's doing everything right and hopefully we see a debut soon."

Madden was back in Wagga on Thursday for a clinic with AFL Riverina and he said it was great to get back to the city.

"Yeah it's good to get back down to Wagga for a couple of days," he said.

"I trained today so hopefully I get to spend a couple of days with the family and see some friends.

"It's good to get back to Wagga and spend some time at home."