Eagles cause upset at Woodville

Coming out of last week’s close win with some frustration in how we had gone about certain aspects of our game, it could be easy to have even more frustration from a loss to a more desperate and hungry football team in Woodville-West Torrens.

And while there is some frustration purely from a competitive ‘wanting to win’ every game mentality, we took away some great learnings that we needed to just reset, understand why we are in the position we are in, and even more importantly understand where we want to be moving forward. Full credit to the Eagles – on the day they were certainly up for the battle and absolutely deserved the win.

The first 15 minutes set the standard for the day with some fast-flowing open football. We most certainly were not at a level defensively that we were wanting to be in the early part of the game, and we allowed the Eagles to score far too easily from all parts of the ground. We were lucky through the second half of the quarter in that we were efficient with some scoring opportunities, and this allowed us to stay in touch at the first break. The game wasn’t looking how we want it to look and the second quarter played out much the same, with us giving up scores too easily in the first part of the quarter. Again, we were able to get some momentum back our way and eventually get the game on our terms for a large part of the quarter. A six-goal quarter put the game back in our favour, but we were also expecting WWT to come at us again.

This is what we got, with the second half being a bit of a struggle for us in all areas. We certainly had some opportunities throughout the second half, but we were not as clean or efficient with the ball and we were well down on where we have been and what we demand and expect of each other defensively.

As mentioned over the year, if you are not at the level required in this tough competition, you leave yourself vulnerable against whoever you are playing against. We need to sharpen up in a few areas this week and get back to the brand of football we have built over the season so far. Make no mistake we will be doing that.

After being really challenged for the most part of the day, our Reserves group eased away to a solid win against another team that should figure in the finals coming up. Again, as has been the case over the season, we are thrilled with the way they are able to defend the ground so well and often turn forced turnovers into exciting ball movement. They are playing high-quality Reserves level football week after week and full credit to all. We look forward to the group finishing off the regular season in solid fashion this weekend.

We now prepare for a Round 18 clash against South Adelaide at the Bay this Saturday. It shapes as a strong challenge for us, with a great opportunity to finish on top of the ladder at the end of the regular season. Our simple focus as a group is to get back to our relentless all-in brand. We look forward to seeing all our supporters cheering us on at our final home game of the season.

– Darren Reeves, Senior Coach

Goal kickers: Lachie Hosie (5), Hugh Stagg (3), B. Searle (2), R. Holder, L. Reynolds

Best Players: Corey Lyons, Lachie Hosie, James Bell, Hugh Stagg, Cole Gerloff