Under 18s Match Report Round 2

This week was a great opportunity for our squad to bounce back from a disappointing performance in Round 1 out at South Adelaide. Knowing we had lost a game for ourselves through costly ball usage alone, the boys were hard at work on the track – seeing some of the best craftwork seen in a long time. Coming into the game our expectations remained the same with our approach to play our style and brand. We just knew that at this level we couldn’t make as many concessions as we made in Round 1 and expect to win games.

The match began with some promising signs – with our ruckman Aidan Lake providing solid first usage for our midfield – led by some solid early work from one of our debutantes from the EP Tyson Pratt who was busy around stoppage early. Converting the first two scores for goals only was a pleasing sign and improvement from the previous week – however that would be as far as the efficiency would go in front of goals for the day. While our goal kicking execution was poor, the general usage across the ground allowed us to control possession and dictate how the game was going to be played for much of the game.

Our defenders showed some great signs with sweeping overlap run from the likes of Riley Verrall, Alastair Lord and Will Bowman as well as really strong 1v1 efforts deep in defence from Max Michalanney and our best on ground Matthew Dnistriansky. Our forward line was once again serviceable in our presentation – with Jayden Gale and Jack Ianniello reaping the rewards of hard gut running to open the oval.

Our second debutant from the EP Phoenix Foster showed glimpses attacking the contested ball but just lacked the finishing on the day. Finishing up the game as 32-point winners we were pleased to get our first win on the board, but we know as a group that we have plenty more to give and improve upon – which is genuinely exciting. This week we go up against an in-form opposition playing some good footy in North Adelaide at home Saturday at 10 am (before the reserves).

We look to improve again and not settle for being satisfied with our play thus far.

SCOREBOARD:

NORWOOD FC: 2.5 4.9 8.12 10.18 78

STURT: 2.3 2.9 5.9 6.10 46

GOALS: Ianniello 3, Gale, Hyde, Pratt, Walls, Minervini, Charlton, Bowman

BEST: Matthew Dnistriansky, Jack Ianniello, Riley Verrall, Max Michalanney, Alastair Lord, Jayden Gale & Will Bowman.