Woodville-West Torrens defeat Port Adelaide
WOODVILLE-WEST Torrens willed its way to an 11-point win against Port Adelaide yesterday to remain within striking distance of the top three.
WOODVILLE-WEST Torrens willed its way to an 11-point win against Port Adelaide yesterday to remain within striking distance of the top three.
The Eagles entered the game undermanned after the late withdrawal of Angus Rowntree (knee soreness) and struggled to penetrate a well-structured Magpie defence.
There were a couple of occasions when it looked like Port would overcome its own sub-par performance to eke out a win - at half-time when the Magpies led by 10 points and late in the final term when a Daniel Kulikowski goal gave them a seven-point lead.
But the Eagles never stopped working and after stealing back the lead through a Matt Goldsworthy miracle from the boundary line they did enough to win.
"I thought we'd lost it a couple of times - Port had momentum - but the boys kept boring in and we did what we needed to do," Eagles coach Michael Godden said.
"I've watched Port really closely over the past two weeks and they were every bit as good as I thought they were. I was really proud of our lads."
The Magpies pushed numbers behind the ball in the opening quarter, forcing the Eagles to take a patient approach.
They broke through on a couple of occasions to take an early lead but their ball movement was sloppy and key forwards Andrew Ainger and Nick Salter were well held. Port sprang to life in the second term as Ben Newton and Justin Hoskin got their hands on the ball in the middle and John Butcher fired in attack.
Butcher took advantage of under-sized Eagles defender Jake Summerton to kick three goals, forcing Godden to hand the job to Luke Thompson, who had far more success.
Brett Ebert injured his groin in the second quarter and couldn't continue and Port's midfield wasn't able to build on its momentum in the second half.
Luke Powell and Scott Lewis began dominating at the stoppages and Chris Hall and Byron Sumner combined for five goals.
Port just couldn't find enough of the footy - and when it did it turned it over too often. "I think we had a bit of overuse in the midfield," Magpies coach Ken McGregor said.
"There were opportunities to go long and we just wanted to make it look perfect rather than just get it forward and trust our forwards one on one."
The defeat ended Port's impressive four-game winning streak which has taken it to the cusp of the top five.
A victory would have pushed the Magpies into fifth and been a perfect way to enter the bye but McGregor is confident he's built a base to launch from into the second half of the year. "The good thing about what we've done in the past five weeks is we've got the building blocks of knowing what it takes for us to win and play competitive footy," McGregor said.