Elimination Final Team

Norwood will begin its finals campaign this Sunday at the Adelaide Oval with the Elimination Final against Central District.

The Redlegs take on the Bulldogs from 12:15pm, followed by the Glenelg V Adelaide Qualifying Final from 3:15pm in a SANFL Finals double header at the Adelaide Oval.

Secure your tickets via the link below, while tickets will also be available at the gate.

Norwood take a settled line up into the first Final, just adding Josh Gillow, Max Hodges and Liam Ling to the extended bench of an otherwise unchanged side.

Redlegs fans breathed a sigh of relief on Tuesday night after the club successfully overturned Finn Heard’s one match suspension at the SANFL Tribunal.

F. Heard was suspended for a tackle laid during the Round 19 win over Port Adelaide, a game where the ruck/forward gathered 32 disposals, 18 clearances and 22 hitouts in a best on ground performance. He is free to play after the Tribunal ruled in favour of Norwood, downgrading his suspension to a fine.

The Redlegs are coming off a thrilling come from behind win over Port in Round 19, a game that they had to win in order to make Finals. Norwood was 35 points down in the second term, before charging home with eight of the last nine goals to secure a 12.15-87 to 11.11-77 victory.

After a slow start to the year, Norwood had to win its last three matches against West Adelaide, North Adelaide and Port Adelaide just to make the top five, which the Redlegs managed to do.

Senior Coach Jade Sheedy was proud of his players for their resilience in mounting the comeback against a quality Magpies side, who were also gunning for finals action in the do-or-die clash.

“It was a gutsy win. All credit to Port, because they were really good in the first half,” Sheedy said.

“They won contest at ground level and the aerial contest and retained possession through that, then went back through us pretty fast and we couldn’t slow down their ball movement, which put our backs under a lot of stress.

“We made a couple of minor adjustments at half time and the players got busy at the centre bounces, led by Finn (Heard) and the midfield group.

“We were able to play the game in our front half in the third quarter for 65% of the time, which resulted in six goals and some scoreboard pressure built off the back of that.

“Our ability to fight through contest in the last quarter was really strong again, and our numbers in the second half were really good around contest and our forward half game, which eventually won us the game of footy.”

Sheedy said his side was excited for the challenge against Centrals this Sunday. The Bulldogs have defeated Norwood on both occasions this season, by 11 points in Round 7 and 19 points in Round 13.

“We haven’t beaten Central District all year, we’ve had two really tight games against them, so we are looking forward to getting out here on Adelaide Oval, where we can put our strengths on show, and we believe a big deck suits the way we want to play, so we’re excited,” Sheedy said.

Centrals are coming off a heavy loss to Glenelg, 20.8-128 to 6.6-42, but defeated the third placed Crows by one point the week before.

Aside from their Round 19 loss against the Tigers, which was a dead rubber for both teams, the Bulldogs come into finals in good form, with five wins from their last eight games. Norwood also enters the finals with a 5-3 win-loss record from its last eight, so both sides enter the finals race running on top of the ground.

Scroll down to see Norwood’s squad for the Elimination Final.