Port Adelaide defeats South Adelaide in preliminary final at Adelaide Oval by 20 points
PORT Adelaide has come back from 17 points down to overcome South Adelaide by 20 points in the preliminary final at Adelaide Oval.
THE SANFL’s biggest rivals, Norwood and Port Adelaide, will meet in the grand final for the first time since 1999 next weekend.
The Magpies won through to the premiership decider with a 20-point win over South Adelaide in the preliminary final at Adelaide Oval on Sunday afternoon.
Like their Power teammates the night before, they did it the hard way by coming from 17 points down at half time to keep the Panthers goal-less in the third quarter.
South fought back with three goals late in the final term to get to within 13 points of the lead but they weren’t able to catch the Magpies, who ran out winners 13.12 (90) to 10.10 (70).
Port Adelaide midfielder Aaron Young said the Magpies evoked the spirit of the Power who came back from 31 points down against Fremantle on Saturday night to win through to the AFL preliminary final.
“I guess it was pretty similar to the Power boys last night,” Young told Channel 7.
“We went inside and said ‘if we’re going to go down, we’re going to go down swinging’ and we came out and had a real crack and got our hands on the footy first, started the quick kick instead of handball and we were lucky enough to get on the scoreboard and turn the game in that quarter.
“We knew we were a fit bunch, we’ve trained all year for this ... and had Kane (Mitchell) back who hasn’t played a game in four weeks so he was fresh and started getting the run going.”
Tom Logan said the Magpies were relieved to get through after a slow start which needed to be addressed at training.
“The first half like last week we didn’t come out firing and it’s something we really need to work on during the week,” Logan said.
“Luckily we came back in that third and could hold on in the last when they came.”
The grand final will be played at Adelaide Oval next Sunday, September 21, at 2.40pm where the Redlegs will be aiming for their third consecutive premiership after they earned the week off by beating Port in last week’s semi-final.
The last time Norwood and Port met in a grand final was in 1999 and it ended in thrilling circumstances with the Magpies winning by just eight points at AAMI Stadium.
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