Eagles triumph over Roosters in one-sided SANFL grand final
The Woodville-West Torrens Eagles’ colours will return to the West End brewery chimney for likely the last time after their grand final win on Sunday.
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The blue, green and gold of the Eagles will roost over the West End brewery this week for the first time since 2011 after a comfortable 39-point defeat of North Adelaide in the SANFL grand final at Adelaide Oval.
The Eagles gave up the first three goals of the game but in a second quarter goal bonanza turned this to a 35-point halftime lead and coasted to victory 13.9.87 to 7.6.48.
North Adelaide went into the game with a psychological edge, having beaten the Eagles in the second semi final.
It was then a winding road for the Eagles to set up the rematch by beating South Adelaide in the Preliminary Final.
The crowd for the 3.00pm start was capped at 25,000 because of COVID-19 restrictions, but 17,038 attended.
In the competition’s 141st year on Tuesday the Eagles colours will now replace the yellow and black of last year’s winner the Glenelg Tigers on the brewery chimney.
With the site being sold, it may be the final Chimney Ceremonies, a tradition which began in 1954.
The 2020 COVID-19 competition had no Crows and no Port Adelaide AFL reserves teams, but nobody at Adelaide Oval was buying into social media debates about there being an asterisk next to the winner this year.
SANFL CEO Jake Parkinson paid tribute to players who were not paid because of the pandemic, but continued to entertain fans throughout the season.
“In May we didn’t even know if we would have a season and here we are 14 rounds of football later, three weeks of finals, and a wonderful grand final day,’’ he said.
“I am unbelievably proud of the football in SA and everyone involved.
“The players were playing for their mates, their jumpers and their clubs, the volunteers were fantastic and the umpires took a significant pay cut as well.”
For Eagles fans the result was sweet revenge for 2018 when North Adelaide was fined $10,000 and docked four premiership points for fielding an extra man during its elimination of Woodville-West Torrens.
Three kids with inside knowledge of what it is like to be playing the Grand Final were the Macgowans, Hester, 15, Scarlett, 14, and Albert, 12.
Dad Ricky won the best-on-ground Jack Oatey medal in the 2001 Grand Final playing for Central District. The honour this year went to Jordan Foote of the Eagles.
With Eagles coach Jade Sheedy being a former Macgowan protege in his Sturt playing days, and Centrals not being in the game the Macgowans were cheering loudly for the blue, green and gold.
“We are living in Melbourne, but we’ve been here for three months, and the kids are really getting into the Eagles,’’ he said.
“Centrals aren’t in it and I’ve been following Jade’s time there so the kids are getting into it.’’
The last time the Eagles and Roosters met in a Grand Final was 1949, when North defeated the then West Torrens.
Jennifer Beauchamp and her partner teacher Marcus Schmerl made a colourful North Adelaide couple, as she showed off a prototype homemade dress she hopes to turn into a fashion line for local footy.
Marcus just hoped for a good outcome so he wouldn’t cop too much strife from his classes on Monday morning.
Marcus is now anticipating a torrid time of it from his students after appearing in the newspaper.
“We beat them a couple of weeks ago so I hoped that didn’t jinx it for us. You always want to be the underdog not the favourite,’’ he said.
Like the Eagles crowd in the general Nik Karipidis was well outnumbered in his group of seven workmates from Walls Brothers Kitchens; who on weekends are the North Grog Squad.
“We work up at Holden Hill so I better get another job on Monday because it is right in the middle of Roosters country,’’ he said.
“But I grew in the west and my grandfather was part of the Woodville-West Torrens merger in 1990, so I’m always Eagles.’’