Replay: Watch West Adelaide take on Norwood in SANFL women’s preliminary final
Minor premier Norwood and underdog West Adelaide have battled it out for a SANFL women’s grand final berth. See who won through to the big dance in our preliminary final replay.
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West Adelaide captain Bec Owen knows her side will enter the preliminary final as underdogs.
But she believes the Bloods have what it takes to topple Norwood, who finished the minor round top of the ladder.
The Redlegs, meanwhile, head into the do-or-die battle with a chip on their shoulder, having been the best side all season, only to lose the double-chance semi-final against Glenelg last week.
The highly-anticipated preliminary final between Norwood and West Adelaide will be broadcast by The Advertiser and The Messenger on advertiser.com.au this Saturday from 11am.
West was down by two points with 90 seconds to go in the do-or-die semi-final against South Adelaide last week.
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But a goal by Mel Elsegood helped the Bloods to a 4.5 (29) 3.7 (25) victory.
The Bloods are aiming to make their first grand final and Owen says players are hungry after losing the 2020 preliminary to the Panthers.
“We are pretty stoked to make it through to the prelim final,” Owen said.
“We were lucky enough to come out in front at the end, just in time.
“It would mean the world to us to finally play in a grand final, we’ve been in the comp for five years now so we are keen as to get there.
“It won’t be easy but nothing will change from our point of view.
“We’ll prepare how we always do and continue to play our game style, we aren’t too worried (about Norwood) we’ll just continue to play how we do and hope it works.”
Owen said it would take everything her side had to cause an upset this weekend.
“They are definitely going to come out hard but our team is up for the challenge,” Owen said.
“If we can continue to play our hard, tough style of footy with four solid quarters, I think we can do it.”
Norwood will be hoping to contest a third flag decider, having won the premiership in the competition’s inaugural year (2017) before losing to South in 2018.
Skipper Alison Ferrall conceded her side was not good enough against Glenelg, going down by 23 points, but was confident the Redlegs were good enough to bounce back.
“We’ve played with plenty of pressure before, so I’m sure we can be better this week,” Ferrall said.
“We just have to stick to our structures and our game, which we kind of went away from on the weekend (against Glenelg).
“Nothing needs to change from previous weeks, we just have to go back to playing our style of footy and our game.”
Ferrall said losing the semi-final could prove to be a positive for the Redlegs.
“We are just really excited for the challenge,” Ferrall said.
“Sometimes when you win the semi, you might lose momentum going into the grand final with the week off.
“We are still in contention because we put ourselves in the position to have a second chance.
“Just because we didn’t get the chocolates (against Glenelg) doesn’t mean we can’t turn it around, we are a really strong team and we have the belief we can go all the way.”
The Norwood v West Adelaide SANFLW preliminary final will be live streamed on advertiser.com.au this Saturday at 11am.
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