Round 12 Coach’s Review

Norwood coach Jade Sheedy said there was still plenty to work on despite, what looked like a clinical performance against South Adelaide away from home on Sunday. 

The Redlegs led by 31-points at half time, having kicked five goals with the wind in the first term, and another four against the win in quarter two, but the coach urged his side to lift – they managed to put the Panthers to the sword in the second half on the way to a 76-point smacking.

“It was a good game of footy, we started well,” Sheedy told The Redlegs Review Podcast yesterday.

“I thought there were some areas of that game that that we need to sharpen up in quarter one and then there were probably a few different areas where we could have used the ball a little bit better.  Then in quarter two we probably got a bit too far ahead of the ball and and lost a bit of integrity in our defence.

“So yeah, we showed a little bit of that at half time and and some contest work and yeah, I thought our second half in particular was really strong.

“We got to contest a little bit better,  got some really good looks and stayed composed with ball in hand, which resulted in a lot of scoring shots but also some efficiency in our front half.”

The Panthers got back to within 18 points of the Redlegs in the second quarter, before Norwood put the foot down, booting 11 of the next 12 majors to demoralize the home side.

“The group’s in a good headspace,” Sheedy said. “They are a very compliant group that you know if we can tell them something at at half time or address something they’re very quick to to fix it.

“We’ve got a lot of great leaders on the field that instruct very well and and a lot of young kids that are willing to learn. So it’s a good blend in the side at the moment through some senior players and some some up and coming leaders, as well as some some good youth.

“I guess our game’s always evolving and changing and it looks different now to what it did in rounds one and two and through the trial period. We’re we’re trying to keep growing our game each week.”

Sheedy was very happy with the game of small forward Jayden Gale, who produced a season high four goals.

“He’s had a really good four to five weeks now, and it’s through his work rate,” Sheedy said.

“He plays an incredibly hard role for us, one that he can he can have days where he might not touch it as much, which isn’t any fault of his. Sometimes it’s just the role that he plays.

“I guess we encourage to play a brand though, where everyone gets involved and and you get involved through work rate. You get involved through how hard you run and he’s been a product of that.

“He’s hitting scoreboard and he’s close to 18 goals for the year now and he’s looking really dangerous. He’s and he’s playing on instinct and he’s doing a great job for us both offensively and defensively.”

Norwood is now (statistically) the best defensive and offensive side in the competition, averaging 91 points for and 52 points against per game.

“It’s good, yeah, but I think it’s just a product of how we play,” Sheedy said.

“We have offensive parts of our game that we talk about, but really our offensive game is built through our defence and what we want to look like at contest.

“If you don’t get your defence and contest right, you don’t play a lot of offence. So first and foremost, we want to nail the key parts of our game. That’s something that we’ve grown over an 18 month period is how we want to use the ball and a certain way that we want to use the ball when we get it back in our hands or earn the right to play offence.”

The Redlegs take on Glenelg this Saturday evening at Coopers Stadium – a second top of the table clash at the venue in recent weeks – the first coming in Round 8 against Woodville-West Torrens.

“Glenelg are a very good side, I went and watched them live on on Saturday and yeah, they’re good in all areas of the game,” Sheedy said.

“As we know, they have some real weapons up forward, they’re strong around the ball with their contest and and they have some really good players and run from their back half.

“It’s going to be a good match.”

Listen to the full interview with Sheedy below.

There’s four matches at Coopers Stadium on Saturday, with Norwood taking on Glenelg in the U16s from 9am, the U18s from 11:20am, the Reserves from 1:50pm and League from 4:30pm. Tickets are available through the link below.