Rd 4 West v Norwood

Lovell out for 4-6 weeks, Keough and Gore under injury clouds...you get more uplifting news out of Iran than out of West Adelaide.
The injury clouds may restrict the coach's options in terms of dropping underperforming players, but Sinderberry, Maguire, Ellem, and Koster wouldn't be confident of holding their spots this week.
Ed Allan, Fejo and even Steele would come under consideration you'd think, and maybe time for a look at a couple of our U18s in the Reserves, e.g. Ryan and Lemmey.

Keough listed as quad.Will probably miss unless it’s a corkie?
Lovell out for 6 is a massive blow.
Murray Waite to come in if fit with Allan, Steele, Anderson.
Ellem probably holds his spot as we have no one else,but he has been disappointing over the 3 matches.

Sam Davidson from Port is a player and hopefully he his over his horror run with injury.

Hard to see us challenging Norwood BUT I want to see effort.
The great Kevin Sheedy used to say HAMMER, CHASE, TACKLE!!
We did none of that on SATURDAY!!

C’mon Bloods, Give us Something!!!!

Injury has struck the club yet again, however the players picked for Friday nights game need to show a GREATER DESIRE FOR THE CONTEST.

Maguire,Ellem, Sinderberry and Koster should be dropped.
Allan, Fejo,Steele and Rana if fit to come in.
May will also miss so Anderson will come in for him.

Let’s hope Keough and Gore play.

Good to get a coach report this week.
Labelled the performance as uncompetitive and a few home truths during the week.
Will be a few changes this week.....

To have a coaches report is good and he gave an honest assessment.
Meline may get his first opportunity at senior level.
Would like to see Murphy moved into the midfield, he was tried up forward in the last qrt against Sturt.

I agree lachlan, apart from Joel Stevens all our mids are short, I'm surprised Beech, Murphy and Keogh haven't been given some time on ball to give us more size and physicality at stoppages.

Murphy has been ok across half back, but we need more from him.
He’s averaging around 16 possessions per game and with our midfield needing help it’s a logical move.

Sturt had 67 inside 50s. We had 33.
That shows that we are not working hard enough and not enough pressure is being put on the opposition.
All of our midfielders have been really disappointing apart from Lovell who is now injured.
Kaine Stevens also excluded.

We certainly need stronger players in the middle who are able to apply pressure. Ed Allan and Redfern both deserve a crack in the middle.

It’s really disappointing as a supporter that after round 4 our season is effectively over if we go down to Norwood.

It’s also disappointing that we were unable to land a key forward who is proven at the level.

West Adelaide v Norwood | Hisense Stadium | 7:40pm | SANFL Digital Pass

WEST

West Adelaide coach Brad Gotch will make at least three changes for the must-win match against Norwood at Hisense Stadium.

Sam May is out with a hamstring while Josh Koster and Mitch Maguire have been dropped after the 50-point loss to Sturt in Round 3.

Five players – Bailey Chamberlain, Ed Allan, Aaron Anderson, Connor Fairlie and Lucas Meline – have been added to the 25-man squad.

Nick Steele, from Port Noarlunga, and Lucas Meline, from the Canberra Demons, could make their League debut.



League

F: Gore, Keough, Ellem

HF: K. Stevens, Beech, I. Johnson

C: Boyle, J. Stevens, Haysman

HB: Murphy, Levicki, Sinderberry

B: Hill, Ryan, Duval



R: Taverner, Schiller, P. Fairlie

INT: Meline, Steele, Chamberlain, E. Allan, Anderson, Dunkin, C. Farilie

IN: E. Allan, Anderson, Chamberlain, C. Fairlie, Meline, Steele

OUT: May (hamstring), Koster, Maguire

NEW: Lucas Meline (Canberra Demons), Nick Steele (Port Noarlunga)



Reserves
Babic, Batley, Bock, Cleeland, Couroupis, Davidson, Elliot, Fejo, Gilbert, Karpany, Kirk, Koster, Laudato, Maguire, Morrish, Patterson, Proude, Redfern, Rundle, Squire R. Stevens, Taylor

Under-18
F: Hahn, Young, Sgroi
HF: Eagleton, Lemmey, D. White
C: McCormick, Kennedy, Desira
HB: Pridham, Midwinter, Singleton
B: Higham, Satanek, Bunworth

R: Barnett, Thackeray, Ryan
INT: Kregar, Coe, Obst, Scully

15 of our 22 named Reserves players are recruits. That's a lot of recruits to have not playing senior football.

Yes, just confirms the saying about March champions. It's always wise to wait for results before judging recruiting.

OTOH, one or two now playing Reserves may turn out to be good, as it takes time to adjust for many recruits. Some (most?) won't be up to it, some may just need time. I always remember that Kaine Stevens was dropped to the Ressies in his first year.

I'd be patient with Maguire. I've watched enough videos of his when we first tried to recruit him to think he'll develop into a handy player.

Spoke to someone close to the team last night and he said the same as what I think I posted a while ago. It's reminiscent of 2008, when Collo came in. We won 2 games and he then started transforming the team by bringing in players he rated.

There are a few players in the 2s who I think will be good players.
No doubt that our comp is a higher and tougher standard than most around the country. It takes time for new recruits to adjust.
I think Maguire will be a good player as will Meline. Sam Davidson is another to keep an eye on.

A problem we have now is that it is harder to build a side over 2 or 3 seasons because of the extra drafts in the AFL. Any genuine talent will be snapped up.
I would expect Mitch Duval is on the radar of clubs for the Mid Season Draft.

All that aside, it’s still disappointing that we are the only club in the comp that has not won a game yet....

I hope Sam goes well, but he's been around for a fair while, so he'd need to make huge improvement.

Correct about the draft, as we have some outstanding Under 18s.

Why though do we seem to be 'rebuilding' every few years? We played in a Grand Final in 2003 and won 7 wooden spoons in the next 17 seasons. That's nearly a bottom finish every 2 years. It's ridiculous. And other clubs don't seem to bottom out as drastically as we do. We sink to the bottom of the ladder and stay there.

Yes the draft is a problem but it's a problem for all clubs. Our record suggests there is something structurally wrong with how the footy side of our club has been set up. Collins got us well organised but why haven't there been long term benefits from that?

I agree. I’m not sure what the answer is. Collins got us winning games but the spectacle was diabolical. That sort of negative football was really bad to watch.

Will never forget the 2012 grand final. We had one goal at 3 qtr time on a perfect Sunny afternoon. I walked out at that point.

Collins was able to recruit high quality players including Ferguson (who was outstanding) Morris, Shane Birss and the Caruso brothers to name a few.
There are probably some I’ve missed.
Have we had any recruits in the last 5 years that have been at that sort of level from the Collins era? I can’t think of any.....

Looking at our side tonight, there are half a dozen in the side who in all honesty, should be playing A1 Amateur football.

All good questions and summary, eagles lost a lot of their best yet still are competitive and able to recruit. If that was West, it would take us a decade to recover!
Now a gripe, who the hell thinks a 7:40pm start time outside daylight savings is a good idea?? Too many night games and stupid scheduling not good for crowd numbers. Mind boggling really.

There are obvious structural and cultural problems at our Club.

Pointing them out isn't regarded kindly.

At least the game is on a Friday night, so we can do something else on the weekend, as suggested

Let’s hope that Brad Gotch can get the club right and things can start improving.
I’ve got confidence in him to get us off the bottom.

Yers, I think Brad will use this season to work out who and what is needed and then go out to make significant changes.

I'm sure he'll put us on the right track.

Great pressure tonight.

Playing with some passion at last.

Still great pressure.

Norwood as bad as I've seen. They only kicked 2 last week, can see that wasn't an aberration.

Duval is a star.

Yes a. If turn around and finally looked like they were more desperate than their opponents. More of that please!
Norwood on the other hand were terrible.

Great win tonight!!
Out tackled the opposition and the effort and intensity around the ball was good all night.

I thought our defence was a lot better tonight.
Mitch Duval was again really good. Ryan and Levicki were much better than last week.

Duval will play 4 more games for the club. I’m pretty sure he will go in the MSD on June 2.

Of the new players, Josh Gore is impressive. Kicks goals and attacks the footy hard!
Tom Murphy looks good too. Uses the ball well.

Ed Allan came in for his first game and was really impressive. 24 possessions, 9 tackles and a goal!

We lost the clearances by plenty so some work to do there.
Need to back it up against Central next Saturday.

Wolf Pack wrote:Great win tonight!!
Out tackled the opposition and the effort and intensity around the ball was  good all night ...

We lost the clearances by plenty so some work to do there.
Need to back it up against Central next Saturday.

Very pleasing to see us win in this manner. It is much easier to be patient when we produce this kind of effort. Next week's game against Centrals will be a great test for us. They will provide a much tougher contest than Norwood did last night and secondly we'll have to reproduce that level of intensity again. If we can sustain this effort for four quarters week after week then we can claim to have made a significant improvement.

As Wolf Pack mentioned, we need to win more clearances. We also need to vastly improve our skill level as there were many unforced errors last night. Nevertheless, last night's win was extremely satisfying all round. Great to see everyone smiling, supporters, players and coaches.

We must win against Centrals to build momentum.

Go Bloods

It’s  the best game we have played by some margin this year.

The want for the contest and the effort was there for most of the game.
Norwood were up for the fight and in the first qrt they were the better side,however after 1/4 time I thought we really controlled the game.
Our tackling was a feature for the first time in 2021 and I also thought we were prepared to take risks, we moved the ball much quicker this week which was pleasing to see.

Jordan Boyle was simply outstanding he worked his butt off and is obviously very fit. He’s been a very good recruit for us.
Ed Allan was also very good, his tough inside work was great and he’s a two way runner.
Stevens as usual was sound and Duvall yet again was our best defender, I would love to see him up forward at some point.
Josh Gore played his best game and he will get better if we could Recruit a couple of Key Forwards.
Anderson does make a few skill errors by foot, but he loves the contest and it was good to have him back in the league side.
Dunkin who played on the wing will get better when he learns how to play that role, but his ball use and decision making were good.

I watched the Ressies and Chamberlain was a standout I also thought Couroupis playing his first game back from injury was also good at half back. He will eventually move into the midfield.

I don’t think you can play Allan, Schiller and Fairlie in the same team perhaps Redfern or Meline will be given an opportunity.
I also think Joel Stevens will be sent back to the ressies after a couple of quiet weeks.

We simply must beat Central’s next week.