League Match Report SANFLW – Round 5 vs Eagles

Saturday saw us take on Woodville in our Round 5 clash at Hisense Stadium. Further injuries from Round 4 meant that there were another 4 changes that needed to be made this week. Zoe Greer came out through a knee injury which will see her miss the remainder of the season, Georgie Pater missed out through a hamstring and Gemma Houghton through a quad injury, Lucy Boyd also came out through suspension. Regardless, we were excited to bring in veteran Nicole Hooper for her first senior game of the year, Ella Maxwell made her SANFLW Debut along with Steph Walker making her Club debut, and Tamika May was recalled from the Development League.

The game started off strongly in our favour. We managed to get the first 4-5 inside 50’s but were wasteful kicking 0.3 before the Eagles quick transition kicked the first goal of the game. From there, it was all Eagles. Tabby Saville kicked our first of the game, but the Eagles were far too polished for us and we spent the first half chasing guernseys which resulted in a 5-goal deficit at half time.

We were able to use the main break to have a look and managed to wrestle back some momentum in the 3^rd, winning the quarter kicking 1.3 and kept the Eagles scoreless. Unfortunately, the damage was done, the Eagles still managed to have a 4-goal lead at 3 quarter time and finished us off in the last kicking another 2 goals to put the margin out to 37-points.

It was disappointing we couldn’t have gotten over the line for Zoe Venning, who lined up for her 50^th SANFLW match at West Adelaide. Zoe has been a huge part of the football club since she came through our Junior program having played every possible game (only missing for State game) to reach 50 games, Zoe becomes the first player at the club to reach the milestone.

Zoe was also named Best on Ground collecting 20 disposals for the game. Lauren Young continued to impress despite being tagged and finished with 22 disposals and a game high 7 clearances after moving back into the midfield. Iilish Ross continued to impress with her work rate and finished with 12 disposals and veteran Nicole Hooper was solid in her first league game for the season.

Goal scorers: Tabby Saville 1, Nicole Hooper 1

Best players: Zoe Venning, Lauren Young, Nicole Hooper, Iilish Ross