Salisbury West boots 3.11 but claims division seven premiership
SALISBURY West Football Club kicked just three goals in its grand final on Saturday – but still won.
WHEN is 29 points enough to win a football grand final?
If the opposition only manages to score 21.
Salisbury West knows this after winning a division seven premiership at Alberton Oval on Saturday despite kicking just three goals – and eight behinds – against Prince Alfred Old Collegians.
The Tigers booted all three of their majors in the second quarter then held on, as the Old Reds finished on 3.3 (21).
Only four points were scored after half-time as players battled what Tigers midfielder Darrell McIntyre described as the windiest conditions he had ever played in.
“You’d kick the ball and half the time it’d land 10m in front of you, even though you’d kicked the hell out of it,” McIntyre, 26, said.
“It was a real strong breeze and it was swirling all day.
“It was across ground, swirly and kept changing, sometimes halfway through a quarter.
“But it was also the way Prince Alfred played – the tackling pressure was there all day from both sides.
“It was actually a pretty good game.”
The last AFL/VFL grand final winner to finish with fewer than 29 points was in 1927 – Collingwood’s 2.13 (25) beat Richmond’s 1.7 (13).
You have to go back even further in the SANFL, where Sturt kicked 3.5 (23) in the 1919 grand final replay to defeat North Adelaide’s 2.6 (18).
McIntyre, who kicked one of Salisbury West’s three majors on Saturday, said he had never played in a match where goals were so priceless.
“The forward entries were there constantly but some of our shots – most of us kicked half of them out on the full.
“When someone got a goal, the team that kicked it felt like it was a bit of pressure off their shoulders because it was so hard to score.”
McIntyre said the game’s final stages were nerve-racking as Salisbury West closed in on its first A-grade premiership since 2006.
The Tigers lost grand finals in 2012 and 2014 before being demoted from division four two years ago because the club had not registered enough players.
They did not lose a game this season.
“We were up by two points at one stage and then it was just point after point,” McIntyre said.
“We got it out to a two-goal margin but they were still fighting, coming and giving all they had.
“(After the final siren) we were just jumping and happy.
“We’d finally got one.”
McIntyre joined the Tigers at age seven and has spent the majority of his playing career there but his only two flags came while playing juniors.
He believed the result could be the start of the club’s turnaround.
“Hopefully we can go again and work our way back up.”