South Adelaide’s 10-minute burst leaves Sturt looking for answers

STURT coach Seamus Maloney has flagged a searching review at Unley this week after his side was blown apart in the space of 10 minutes by South at Noarlunga on Sunday.

STURT coach Seamus Maloney has flagged a searching review at Unley this week after his side was blown apart in the space of 10 minutes by South at Noarlunga on Sunday.

The match was an arm-wrestle until the 18 minute mark of the third term, when Xavier Gotch snapped a clever goal from a stoppage for South.

The Panthers then banged through another five goals for the quarter, four of them on the back of clever clearance work as Joel Cross ran riot.

By three-quarter time the Panthers were 45 points clear and the contest was all but over.

Sturt kicked four quick goals in the final term but South settled to win well.

“We have to review it pretty critically,’’ Maloney said.

“They (South) have got us before and they’ve got belief that they can get us at key times.

“Our guys have to understand how tough you have to be at this level to consistently play good league footy.

“To have flat spots is not good enough and if we’ve got guys who drop out of games at those times we have to identify that.

“For 10 minutes we lost the plot. They beat us big time at stoppages.”

South, coming off a bad loss to Port the previous weekend, was clearly keen to make a statement about contested football and won the early arm-wrestle.

Jake Veide was playing a close but effective tagging role on Zane Kirkwood and the Panthers extended their lead to 21 points early in the second term when Brett Eddy took a strong mark and goalled.

But Sturt began working its way back into the contest and began making gains on the scoreboard and in general play.

Angus Bruggemann kicked two goal for the second term and looked dangerous.

When Guy Page goalled early in the third term, Sturt had trimmed the margin to one point.

But Cross willed himself into the contest and inspired South’s third term onslaught.

“I thought Crossy probably inspired us a fair bit,’’ South coach Brad Gotch said.

“There were some inspirational acts by some individuals and we got a real roll which is pleasing.

“The exciting thing for us I still think we made a lot of errors today I think there are a lot of things we can improve on but in that patch we were scintillating.

“That’s what we have to aspire to do be more often.”

Despite the attention he received, Kirkwood contributed for Sturt with 25 disposals and seven clearances but the Double Blues have undergone some personnel changes and couldn’t gel for much of the match.

Brad Crabb and Matthew Rankine were both effective down back for the Panthers, who will be pleased to be at 2-1 with a different looking side to the one that took the field in the 2014 preliminary final.

South Adelaide 3.6 5.6 12.8 13.8 (86)

Sturt 1.3 4.5 5.5 9.9 (63)

BEST- South: Cross, Macleod, Seccull, Rankine, Veide, Gotch

Sturt: Beard, Bruggemann, Kirkwood, Kurtze, Battersby.

GOALS — South: Eddy, Cross, Macleod, Seccull, Rolfe 2, Gotch, Overall, Bass.

Sturt: Bruggemann 4, Calabrese, Greenslade, Page, Smith, Hansen,

UMPIRES: Bau, Medlin, Burke

INJURIES — Sturt: Bartlett (shoulder)

CROWD: 2073