Underage Reports Round 11

Our round 11 match-up saw us playing West Adelaide for the third time this year. With the long weekend enabling our college players to be available for selection, we were excited to get some of our talented college boys back on the track at Coopers Stadium for our Friday night game.

We started the game in tremendous fashion, kicking five goals in the first quarter of play. With a focus on pressure at the source, our Norwood boys looked dangerous as they hunted the ball and opposition. We extended our lead in every quarter of the game as we put together an excellent four-quarter effort.

Josh Bradford continues to lead the way in the midfield, finishing with 25 disposals, six tackles and six clearances. William Rowlands and Beau Baldwin led the way in the forward line, kicking 4.1 and 3.1 respectively. Both players looked likely to score every time they were near the ball and their strength within the contest and aerially was very good throughout the game. Live wires, Tyson Pratt and Taj Rahui brought excitement and pace to the game as they used their elite speed and agility to work the ball forward and create scoring opportunities. Pratt finished with 2.1 while Rahui finished with 1.3. Dannen Blacker had a task set for him defending state key forward Tom Scully. Despite having a significant height disadvantage, Blacker competed hard and minimised Scully’s impact on the game, holding him to 2.3.

The win was a great way to lead into the league-wide double bye. Players will get the chance to train with their local clubs and refresh for what will be an exciting back half of the season.

SCOREBOARD:

NORWOOD: 5.5 9.10 1.11 13.18 (96)

WEST ADELAIDE: 2.3 3.3 4.8 5.10 (40)

GOALS: Rowlands 4, Baldwin 3, Pratt 2, Rahui, Pitt, Rachwal, Verrall

BEST: Bradford, Rowlands, T. Rahui, Baldwin, A. Van Wyk, N. Hyde

On Friday night we faced West Adelaide at Coopers Stadium. We knew this would be an even game as college kids were available but were both missing our top five players to state commitments.

The boys were really excited about this game as getting the opportunity to play Friday night at The Parade is a real buzz for the kids. The warmup and the feeling were good before the game.

Unfortunately, we went down by two points, in an exciting finish. As a coach, the biggest question you ask for is being competitive, we were. We did lack polish where West were much cleaner in the air. They also seemed to outnumber us around the contest and ran out of clearances better than us.

Charlie Lewis and Ned Bowman played strong games across half back, Ezra Foster was good down back and Will Prescott looked really damaging across half forward.

We now have a break for three weeks due to college football and state commitments, the boys will head back to their local club this week and hopefully playing to the level we expect at Norwood.

Once back, we get everyone three weeks so hopefully, we can get some continuity back as on Friday we made 15 changes. The 16s are working hard, we have used over 60 players this year in 11 games. Finding some rhythm makes it hard but trust me they are giving their all with so many other disruptions.

SCOREBOARD:

NORWOOD: 2.0 3.4 6.7 8.9 (57)

WEST ADELAIDE: 1.3 4.6 5.10 8.11 (59)

GOALS: Prescott 3, Wood, Barilla, Edwards, Halfpenny, Sims

BEST: Lewis, Foster, Bowman, Prescott