Reserves Round 1 Match Report

Eagles 16.10 (106) def North Adelaide 11.6 (72)
Goal Scorers: Pickett 6, McLeod 2, Moore 2, Cook, House, Lee, Mead, Redden, Wehr
Best Players: Pickett, West, Mead, C Gaffney, Lee

It was great to get back to footy at Maughan Thiem Kia Oval on Sunday as we took on last years premiers. It has been a very challenging pre-season with the squad having to adapt to a new game style and to their credit they have put a lot of good energy and are at a level now that they understand it well.

Round 1 always brings excitement with 6 new players making there senior club debut for the WWTFC and all making considerable contributions.

The first quarter we headed into a stiff breeze and for the first 15 minutes North Adelaide controlled the outside of the contest with our mids doing some great work inside the contest and as the quarter continued we were able to match North Adelaide to kick the last 2 goals late in the quarter.

The early parts of the second quarter saw some very direct and exciting footy as we kicked 4 goals to 1 in the first 7 minutes of the quarter to build a 25 point lead. As a coach I was most pleased with our efficiency inside 50 scoring 7 times from our 11 entries.

Our willingness to continue to hunt the footy in the third and have a great balance between inside and outside footy saw us extend our lead to 40 points at 3 quarter time.

The final quarter was about us finishing off our good work of the previous three quarters. We know the that North Adelaide being the reigning premiers that they were going to keep coming at us as they did but to our guys credit they showed great maturity for a young group to run out 34 point victors.

We travel to Sturt next week and look forward to seeing as many supporters there.

Vinnie Rugolo
Reserves Coach