Norwood beat Sturt in SANFL elimination final
Norwood coach Jarrod Cotton has backed his side to do more damage in the SANFL finals after taking care of business against Sturt in the elimination final on Saturday.
Norwood coach Jarrod Cotton has no doubt his side can repeat North Adelaide’s effort last season and rise to premiership glory from the elimination final.
The Redlegs are still alive in the race for the flag after conquering Sturt by 14 points in the elimination final at Adelaide Oval on Saturday, holding off a final-quarter charge from the Double Blues.
While admitting to feeling relief to get the win, Cotton said the Redlegs had the talent and sufficient X-factors to add another flag to the club’s proud history.
“Without doubt we can come from the elimination final,” Cotton said. “It happened to us last year (North Adelaide came from the first final to beat the Redlegs in the grand final) and there is no reason we cannot do it.
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“We will get great confidence out of knowing against good opposition at Adelaide Oval we can hang tough, get a good score and okay some exciting football.
“I thought we would win, we had good form against Sturt and I have great confidence in the group, I know our best footy is good enough.
“We have just been a bit patchy from time to time, but as we saw last year, get some momentum and winning feeling and anything is possible.”
The Redlegs appeared to have the game at their mercy when they charged to a 35-point advantage midway through the second half after bagging five unanswered goals.
Redlegs ruckman Sam Baulderstone was on top and they were able to get the ball out of the packs too easily to constantly charge forward. And the hefty buffer was achieved with little input from gun onballers Matthew Panos and Mitch Grigg.
There seemed little aggression from the Double Blues, but as the second term lengthened, so too did they start to secure more ball and move it into attack with more purpose to close within 14 points.
Double Blues onballer Sam Colquhoun was getting his hands to plenty of possessions as is his way, while Jake Sutcliffe gave the Redlegs’ defence some headaches.
When Josh Hone goalled 13 minutes into the third quarter, the Double Blues trailed by just eight points and had the momentum.
However the Redlegs responded and again blasted clear with a 38-point lead early in the fourth term. The pace of Dom Barry was a major concern for the Double Blues and he created plenty of damage.
There was still plenty of fight in the Double Blues though, and they kept coming at the Redlegs.
Double Blues coach Nathan Grima confessed the better team on the night won.
“They missed a lot of opportunities when they could have iced the game,” Grima said.
“Early on they were cleaner, out tackled us and got a big advantage at the clearances on the back of dominant display by Baulderstone.
The frustrating part for me, we know if they get the ball outside the contest they can outspread us because they have a lot of pace. We had opportunities to tackle and stop the play. The character of the group, we hung in and had a chance. But we had too much work to do to get back in.”
SCOREBOARD
NORWOOD 2.4 7.6 13.11 16.14 (110)
STURT 2.0 5.4 9.5 15.6 (96)
BEST - Norwood: Barry, Baulderstone, Gerloff, Shenton, Smart, McKenzie. Sturt: Sutcliffe, Colquhoun, Battersby, Riley, Harms.
GOALS - Norwood: Barry, Wilson, Dawe 3, Bampton 2, Panos, Grigg, Hamilton, Johnston, Stephens. Sturt: Sutcliffe 4, Hone 3, Greenslade, Sumner, M. Evans, Patullo, Fahey-Sparks, Battersby, Read, Crocker.
UMPIRES - Lewis, Hundertmark, Bowen.
VENUE — Adelaide Oval.