Hungry Glenelg maul struggling West Adelaide with a 75-point thrashing

IT’S looking very much like a premiership hangover at West Adelaide after the defending champions were condemned to a 0-2 start, losing to a hungry Glenelg by 75 points on Sunday.

03/04/16 Glenelg v West Adelaide at Glenelg Oval. Josh Scott marks in front of Brett Turner. photo Calum Robertson

IT’S looking very much like a premiership hangover at West Adelaide after the defending champions were condemned to a 0-2 start, losing to a hungry Glenelg by 75 points on Sunday.

Without James Sellar, who was injured in the warm-up, and with only one fit man on the bench for the second half, the Tigers gave their supporters genuine reason for optimism with a high-scoring four-quarter blitz.

The Bloods have now opened their premiership defence with consecutive 12-goal hidings and on Sunday their midfielders struggled to cope with a mountain of pressure as Glenelg took away their time and space with the footy.

“It’s a very big concern,” West coach Mark Mickan said.

“There’s no excuse, we pick the team to do the job and they didn’t get the job done.

“I thought our discipline dropped away, we got out-worked on the outside and I suspect our voice and on-field presence dropped off.

“They are all controllables and there were patches in both games where we identified we controlled them quite well but we haven’t been able to go the distance.”

Captain Chris Schmidt had 28 disposals and Collingwood recruit Trent Stubbs had 21 and kicked three goals but too many of West’s good players were down.

Glenelg, meanwhile, had winners all over the ground, led by Andrew Bradley and Ben Sawford in the middle.

Livewire forward Josh Scott imposed himself in the second half, and Ruory Kirkby who showed he’d lost none of his ability after a year out of the game.

“It’s probably been one of our weaknesses as a team - that our defensive pressure hasn’t been up to scratch (so) we had a huge focus on that during the week and our ability to put pressure on West Adelaide was probably the difference in the game,” Glenelg coach Matthew Lokan said.

“We’re not getting carried away, we understand where we’re at.

“We finished ninth last year, we’re round two and 1-1, today was an excellent performance and I thought we had an even contribution from our team.”

That was needed after injuries hit.

Carl Nicholson was super in the first half but didn’t emerge after the long break, then five minutes into the third quarter Terry Milera limped off and the Tigers were down to one on the bench.

At three-quarter time, all was not lost for West, with the lead seemingly managable.

Travis Tuck and Josh Schiller tried to lift the Bloods in the middle but Glenelg answered the challenge. Aaron Joseph began to find the footy and Christian Howard and Jake Johansen were very creative off half back.

The final quarter became embarrassing for the Bloods, who managed just one behind to Glenelg’s whopping 8.7.

“In some ways we were lucky to be within 21 points at three quarter time and I went out with a fairly buoyant attitude,” Mickan said.

“(But) the things that kept us behind in the first three quarters produced themselves in spades in the last quarter.”