And it has pitched the youngest and smallest club in the game against one of the oldest and definitely the largest and loudest.

So complicated are some of those relationships that when Collingwood's newest official, Graeme Allan, turns up at Spotless Stadium for the clash against his former club Greater Western Sydney, he half-jokingly vowed to wear orange and barrack for the team he largely established. In fact, Allan's foot in both camps continues to raise eyebrows at both clubs.

As one of the AFL's most bitter off-field rivalries moves to the playing arena for the first time this season, Giants chief David Matthews confirmed he would push to host the Magpies on the GWS home turf for the next five years on an annual basis.

"It is definitely David and Goliath," said Matthews of GWS versus Collingwood. "This is the biggest club in the competition, the oldest and the most powerful and we're 100 games old. Matthews did not add that his club currently sits in the top four with the Magpies in the bottom eight.

"We've established a great rivalry with the Swans and I think we've got the basis of a genuine rivalry with Collingwood. We've got a great respect for their place in the competition but we are no longer going to apologise for our place in that competition.

"And we will be speaking up when we see that being eroded."

Although Collingwood was not alone in lobbying the AFL to strip the two Sydney clubs of their cost of living allowance, nor to modify their access to their academy players and more recently push for the Giants to lose Albury as part of their academy zone, Eddie McGuire has proved the loudest voice on that lobby.

Having goaded former coach Kevin Sheedy about the prospect of losing players on his Triple M program – Sheedy responded that just because McGuire couldn't hack it in Sydney didn't mean his players wouldn't – the Collingwood chairman has referred to the Giants being based in "the land of the falafel" and zealously attacked the club's list development concessions.

The AFL's acquiescence to the powerful lobby led by Collingwood and Hawthorn prompted Giants chairman Tony Shepherd to threaten to resign earlier this season. "Stop changing the rules on us" was his constant mantra.

"A lot of people have a lot of respect for the passion McGuire has for his football club," said Matthews, who has angrily challenged the AFL behind the scenes for allegedly punishing his club for its greatest successes, "but Tony makes no apology for being equally passionate and neither do I.

"He was asked by the AFL to build a club in the most competitive market in the world and he voluntarily did so. He was given a set of rules and riding instructions and they have continued to change those rules."

Although Allan, the Giants founding football manager, constantly denied he would move to Collingwood and did so to Matthews when it was first put to him late last season, the GWS boss denied any ongoing grudge existed. "He did a great job for this football club," said Matthews, who also questioned Allan last year as to why rival clubs were accusing Allan of running a "closed shop" with Collingwood over the Adam Treloar trade.

Senior Giants players were particularly surprised to see Allan sitting alongside McGuire so soon after he had departed GWS after he had entertained a number of new career paths in Melbourne but not one involving the Magpies.

While some GWS officials have raised their eyebrows at his ongoing attendance at Giants home games – Shepherd still invites him to chairman's functions – Allan says he still barracks for the club and will be doing so in a private box at Spotless Stadium against Collingwood.

"I wasn't disappointed because we were expecting it," said Matthews of Allan's new Collingwood job, which the Magpies announced in a low key late-in-the-day press release. "Everyone was expecting it. I think the whole footy world was expecting it. The only surprise was that he ended up in netball and women's football."

The suggestion that Allan drove Treloar's move to the Magpies as part of a wider agreement that involved him being guaranteed a full-time position with Collingwood has always been denied by Allan himself. Fuelling that speculation was Allan's role in Collingwood's recruiting of Tim Golds, who delisted himself from the Giants and was later taken by the Magpies in the rookie draft.

The Magpies were forced to significantly sweeten the Treloar deal after Richmond CEO Brendon Gale called Matthews to question why the negotiation appeared to have become a closed shop.

While that intervention by the club chiefs infuriated Allan, Collingwood's offer, which had involved just one first-round draft pick, became two. On current ladder placings that would be pick No. 8 in the 2016 draft.

"Every deal we've done with Collingwood has been overwhelmingly in our favour," said Matthews. "Our only concern was to get a very, very good deal for Adam Treloar and to get a deal for Treloar better than Adelaide got for [Patrick] Dangerfield was a very, very good deal."

The Magpies are also helping finance Heath Shaw's stellar season, which sees him in line for another All-Australian selection. Shaw, the reigning Giants club champion, came to the club in a straight swap with Taylor Adams with Collingwood contributing $70,000 a season to Shaw's pay packed over 2014, '15 and '16.

"I think he's said publicly he was very, very disappointed to be leaving a club where his family had such a great legacy," said Matthews. "I'd have to say he's the most competitive person I've ever met and he's channelled that into very positive and constructive leadership at this football club."

Intensifying the cross-pollination between the two clubs has been Nick Maxwell's new role at the Giants where he now runs the leadership program and has reportedly fast-tracked the on-field management skills of Devon Smith, Dylan Shiel, Matt Buntine and Stephen Coniglio. The Magpies premiership captain came to Greater Western Sydney at Shaw's strong recommendation.

Shaw, speaking at a Sydney Swans breakfast early in the season, which paid tribute to his retired brother Rhyce, quipped how tough it had been watching the round-one Swans clash with his old club. "It was really tough watching Collingwood get thrashed," he said.