SANFL Wheelchair Football Season Preview

The SANFL Wheelchair Football League season gets underway this Friday night, with Norwood taking on Woodville-West Torrens in a Grand Final rematch. 

The Redlegs play the Eagles at The Lights Community and Sports Centre in Round 1 on Friday, June 20 from 6:15pm.

The 2025 season again has four participating clubs, with Norwood, Woodville-West Torrens, Central District and West Adelaide (replacing Sturt) taking part in the competition. Each game is held in Lightsview.

Norwood was much improved in 2024 (following a winless 2023 season) to take on the Eagles in last season’s Grand Final, with the undefeated Woodville-West Torrens claiming the title by 48 points, 15.4-94 to 7.4-46.

Redlegs captain Grant Leonard was excited for the season to commence after a long and productive pre-season.

“Round 1 this Friday against the Eagles, it will be a tough rematch,” he said.

“They got us last year in the Grand Final obviously, and we’re hoping to do one better this year, or at least be more competitive against the good sides like the Eagles.

“We’re keen as mustard to get out on the court.

“We’ve had a good core group training over the pre-season, it’s been really good. We’re trying to keep as fit as possible, improve our ball skills – 40 minutes of game time sounds like a long time, but it’s not enough time to catch up if you get too far behind.”

Leonard – who has represented SA at the National Championships in recent years – welcomed co-coach John Musolino and forward Jamie Smyth to Norwood’s squad this season.

Smyth has headed to The Parade from Central District, where he’s been one of the premier goal scorers of the competition and also representing SA alongside Leonard.

“We had Wayne McNamara retire after last season, so that allowed a four-point player to fit into our team,” Leonard said.

“I knew Jamie would be a great fit and I think he was looking for a bit of a change, so we put the call out to him and I think he was pretty quick to respond and jump on board with us.

“Jamie and I have played forward together and, so I’m looking forward to mixing with him again.”

Each SANFL Wheelchair side has a maximum of 16 points available to have on court at once.

“The classification system’s been brought in, so we can have a mixture of able bodied and disabled players on court,” Leonard said.

“A player with a higher disability will be one point and an able-body will be classed as five points. Collectively, as long as you don’t go over 16, you’ve got a side, it makes the competition fairer.

“It’s a good mix to have, and we’ve played and trained together for a while so we know each other’s abilities and disabilities, which makes a good team.”

Leonard believes that the Eagles will still be the team to beat.

“We’ll be chasing them as much as we’ve tried other years. They have a very strong side across the board and they’ve got good depth as well,” he said.

“Even last year in the Grand Final when a player went off injured, the next guy came on and did just as good. The Eagles have had the wood on us in recent years, so we are keen to bridge that gap.

“But, our group has improved and we probably a greater depth in players and ability across the court.

“We’ve had a couple of years where we really struggled to win games, but last year we just scraped into the Grand Final, so hopefully this year we can improve again as a team and win some more games. We’ll see how we go.”

Norwood’s side will again be coached by David Gould, alongside new co-coach John Musolino.