Tigers make a huge statement in season opener

After a long preseason, where we have focussed heavily on improved performance and sustaining it, it was great to finally get the season started. Clearly our players were more than ready to.

There is always a high degree of anxiety leading into round 1, given there are no real form lines for any team.

Three debutants, all super talented juniors in Matilda Scholz, Violet Patterson and Poppy Scholz, made our pregame exciting with a few nerves thrown in there too – not that you would have known it with how all three played.

It was a tight first half, with both teams having momentum at various stages. Over the last few seasons we have been relatively strong defensively when the opposition have momentum, but the biggest issue has been hitting the scoreboard when we have momentum. So it was pleasing that we were able to head into the half time break with five goals on the board, whilst restricting Norwood to two goals.

In past seasons we would struggle to accelerate and go on with it across four quarters, but there is a strong belief and hunger within this group to prove the naysayers wrong, which is driven hard by our leadership group. As a result our second half performance was scintillating. We kicked eight goals while not conceding any score.

Lots of things we did worked really well, but we are fully aware that this won’t be the case every week. There will be many challenges and obstacles that we will need to overcome, notwithstanding the competition looks to be extremely close again, with any team able to win on the day. We want to be a consistently high performing team, so managing the mental side of the game week in week out will also be a big factor for us.

While it is great to have won in Round 1 and we did do a lot of things well, obviously there are areas we still need to improve on significantly if we are to successfully chase our goals this season.

Great to have our Development team get a strong win too. There is a lot more depth in our squad now and we continue to have a full squad mentality in our program that stood us in good stead throughout 2021.

A big thanks to the supporters who came out and cheered loudly. Players could hear you from the ground, which gave them a lift, and I could also hear it from the coaches box. We loved watching the yellow and black flags waving proudly too!

Round 2 sees us take on a much-improved Sturt on Saturday 12^th February at Thebarton Oval, with the Development kicking off at 4:10pm followed by the Seniors at 6pm. We would love to see as many Tiger supporters there to help us get the momentum going.

– Jason Fairall, Senior Coach

Goal kickers: Brooke Tonon (6), Chelsea Packer (3), Piper Window (1), Caitlyn Swanson (1), Lucy Armitage (1), Laura Chigwidden (1)

Best: Sarah Goodwin, Brooke Tonon, Jess Bates, Chelsea Packer, Ellie Kellock, Piper Window, Matilda Scholz

Final score: NFC 3.2-20 def by GFC 5.18-48

Goal kickers: Marie Martino (2), Sam Franson (1), Melinda Speechley (1), Madison Bennett (1)