Round 11 Reserves Match Report

The reserves took on North Adelaide last Sunday in a match that had plenty on the line. North were playing to force their way into the top 4 and we had the opportunity to potentially secure a top 2 position. The build up to this week’s game was very good from the players and the 9 day break came at a beneficial time for the club as we welcomed a few players back into the league side from injury.  However in football some things don’t always go to plan and we were unable to execute as we would have liked on Sunday. In saying this full credit must go to North Adelaide who were stronger on the day and played well.

We started the game slowly but we were able to build into the contest and went into quarter time with a small deficit despite kicking into a breeze and North Adelaide holding most of the possession. Our defence was holding strong and we felt that if we were able to start winning some clearances we could take the ascendancy. This was the case in the second quarter as we began to win the ball at stoppage and post repeat entries and push out to a handy 14 point lead before a couple of late goals cut the margin to a point at the half. The third and fourth quarters were a see saw battle as both teams fought to take control of the match. We felt at the last change we had the ability to overcome them in the last quarter but we were unable to capitalise on our forward entries until late in the quarter, resulting in North winning the game by 10 points. This is another strong learning experience for our reserves group going forward as they continue to understand the strong level of football required each week in an evenly matched competition that the SANFL is.

There were some really strong performance from Will Mcperson who is putting in a lot of solid performances as a defender, Lachlan Hoile again demonstrated his ability to play in the midfield and Louis Sharrad put together strong performance in the middle of the ground. The reserves team remains in a really good position moving forward and we hope to see as many supporters this Saturday for our final home and away game at Maughan Thiem Kia Oval. lastly congratulations to Jade and the league side on a fantastic win Sunday against North.

Brad Graham
Reserves Coach