SANFL: Woodville-West Torrens bump Crows from finals race with four-point win
WOODVILLE-West Torrens entered Sunday’s thrilling clash with Adelaide six wins and six positions clear of the Crows but believed they were potentially a threat to their premiership aspirations.
IT WAS a pre-emptive strike.
Woodville-West Torrens entered Sunday’s thrilling clash with Adelaide at Woodville, six wins and six positions clear of the Crows but believed they were potentially a threat to their premiership aspirations.
In one of the best matches of the SANFL season to date, the Eagles knocked Adelaide out of the finals race after hanging on in a desperate final few minutes to win by three points in front of the biggest crowd at Woodville in 15 years.
In front of 4679 fans, the Eagles also secured the minor premiership in a match which at times seemed somewhere between the SANFL and AFL in terms of standard.
The scoring was low and both sides made skill errors but the defensive workrate and running both sides did when not in possession was elite.
Adelaide entered the match on a four-game winning streak and Eagles coach Michael Godden said ensuring they wouldn’t have to face the Crows in the finals was a motivator.
“The major motivation for us was to secure top spot,’’ Godden said.
“Secondly, it was to make sure a competitor in the competition, that is as good as they are, wasn’t in the finals ...
“They (the Eagles players) wanted to prove that they are the best side in the competition at the moment and they took that upon themselves, which I’m proud of.”
Under restrictions which rule players ineligible to play finals if they play more AFL than SANFL games, the Crows may not have fielded a competitive side in September but that didn’t enter the Eagles’ thinking in a ferocious contest.
The Eagles opened the scoring after three minutes when Michael Wundke got on the end of a sling-shot attack and snapped from the pocket.
The next 10 minutes was played between the 50m arcs, a pattern that continued all day.
Lachlan McGregor put the Eagles two goals ahead before the Crows began getting the match back on their terms.
Mitch Grigg and Sam Kerridge were prolific through the midfield as Adelaide booted the next four majors.
The contest would ebb and flow for the remainder of the day but Adelaide — which was on the wrong end of a 26-12 free kick count — would come up fractionally short.
“Full credit to the Eagles, they played a brand that we weren’t able to get through but I believe we didn’t take the game on and we didn’t play that well,’’ Crows coach Heath Younie said.
“They defended really well. We switched the ball and wouldn’t go. We just couldn’t penetrate through them.”
SCOREBOARD
Eagles 2.2 5.5 8.5 10.7 (67)
Adelaide 3.1 5.3 7.3 10.3 (63
BEST - Eagles: Allmond, Jarrad, Poole, Thompson, Petrenko, Hall. Adelaide: Grigg, Kerridge, Cheney, Wright, Carey, Wigg
GOALS - Eagles: Hayes, 3, Whittlesea, Poole, Wundke, Petrenko, Schwartz, McGregor, Lewis. Adelaide: Podsiadly, Grigg 2, Wilson, Martin, Callinan, O’Brien, Osborne, Speceley.
INJURIES: McGregor (groin), Thompson (foot)
CROWD: 4679
Umpires: Hundertmark, Cook, Sobieraj