West v Norwood

WEST
West Adelaide could have another debutant as it prepares to face Norwood on Friday night.
Kyle Kirk, from Dalyston in country Victoria, has been included on a five-man extended interchange bench.
The 22-year-old has been joined by Brett Turner, Tom Pillion, Murray Waite and Aaron Anderson in the Bloods’ 23-man squad.
Ken Karpany was sent back to the Reserves while West will be without key midfielders Will Snelling (Essendon) and John Noble (Collingwood) for the rest of the season after they were selected in the AFL Mid-Season Draft on Monday night.
League
F: G. Turner, Beech, Wasley-Black
HF: Johnson, Hupfeld, Osborn
C: Batley, P. Fairlie, Waite
HB: J. Evans, Keough, Willsmore
B: Hill, Ryan, Dunkin

R: Parrella, H. Haysman, K. Stevens
INT: Anderson, B. Turner, Majok, Pillion, Kirk
IN: B. Turner, Kirk, Pillion, Waite, Anderson
OUT: Noble (AFL), Snelling (AFL), Karpany

Reserves
Karpany, Cleeland, Inglis, Gallaway, Lynch, Heitmann, L. Evans, Levicki, Caruso, S. Bentley, Laube, Noonan, Morrish, Gutsche, Rana, Fairlie, May, Nield, Moore, J. Bentley, G. Haysman.

Back after 27 hours in the air and at airports.

Sad to watch that 2nd quarter.

Can we go man on man for the remainder of the game and play contested footy at least and be accountable. Zone NOT working and allowing Norwood to set it up on the half back line with their loose players all over the ground. Pressure footy needed and 1 on 1 footy will stop their flow.

Good call. I think they did and it was better.

Who was the streaming commentator with Weed?

Watched online, geez our foot skills are rubbish and cost us scoring goals and conceding goals. That was still the case before the mid-season losses. Inability to step up when a team gets gets momentum yet another common theme in 2019.
Looking for positives is pretty hard to be honest, we look to be the worst team in the comp by a fair way unfortunately and another win looks a long shot. At least they didn’t lose by 100 plus which looked likely at HT....

At the moment we are at least 6 quality players away from being a competitive team.
As noted above we are very ordinary at getting the ball off the opposition, and very good at giving it to them.
We rarely score from a stoppage in our forward 50 and regularly concede scores from stoppages in our defensive 50, which looks to be a combination of poor ruckwork and structure.
It was pleasing to see us respond after half time and not roll over and cop a massive hiding (if 9 goals isn't one), so the effort is generally there.
I thought Fairlie was our best, and I thought others who did more good than bad were Dunkin, Ryan and Osborn.
Also thought the commentary was appalling.

Strange game. If you take out the second Q where we were obliterated by Norwood, the contest was pretty even. They scored 12.8 to our 10.8 in the other 3 Qs but kicked 7 in the second while we went goalless. Things looked bleak at half time’

We were a much better team in the second half and there were a few times when we outplayed the Legs but not enough of them. Maybe Norwood eased off a bit. We ran the game out well but then we had only played 3 Qs of footy to Norwood’s 4. For what its worth our score of 10.9 was equal to our highest losing score this year.

They were faster, more skillfull and had players who could kick goals. 18yo Cam Taheny in his third game booted 5 and 19yo Gerloff booted 4. Where do they get these kids from? Also, some Anthony Wilson magic.

28yo second gamer Nigel Osborn laid an amazing 12 tackles. Parella acquitted himself well against the experienced Baulderstone and Josh Ryan was solid down back. Stevens probably our best. Fairlie tried hard and will possibly be joined by his brother next week. Hupfeld and Beech booted 2 goals apiece.

The commentary was as good as our skills, my fave was when in the 2nd qtr they were going on about Beech going off at QT and not back out and what a blow it was to our forward line. Despite the fact he was bobbing up in our backline, I actually wondered if they were in the bar or watching the game

Yes, just back from overseas and I thought the main commentator was deplorable. Who was it?

I was heartened by our second half. When you look at the team and compare it with our early round teams, you could be mistaken for thinking it was half a Reserves team, so the effort was good, a[part from the 2nd quarter.

We have a long list of outs. Snelling, Schmidt, Schiller, Levicki, Noble, Bates, Middleton, etc, all walk-up starts.

I/m liking Fairlie's vision and disposal, Josh Ryan and Dunkin back, thought Parella was good.

Back on deck and looking forward to getting back into it.

We tried, however we were simply outclassed. We don’t have enough goal kicking options. It’s extremely disappointing that a player like MIDDLETON decides after 6 rounds that he can’t be bothered turning up to training. He  leaves the club with no tall marking options in our forward line.

We are well and truely 6 to 8 players away from being a competitive SANFL side. The last 4 years has shown we simply don’t have the talent to be successful.

I though Ryan was good all night and Fairlie especially in the first half was very good. I also thought Keough battled his heart out.

I’m not sure when we will win our next game.

I hope young players such as May,Laube,Kirk,C. Fairlie and even the young Ruckman Rana get an opportunity to play league footy

We need to recruit another Ruckman for next year as players like Parella are under no pressure to hold his spot.

Our on field Performances over the past 4 years have been totally unacceptable. 2020 is a very important year for us and things need to improve and rapidly.

U/18s


NORWOOD
66
9.12
WEST ADELAIDE
67
10.7

Lee, I admire your capacity to always find positives but I thought last night was deplorable.

Lachlan is right in that we are six to eight players away from being a reasonable league team. We are certainly the worse team in the competition. We lack height, body strength & skills.

I am sick of hearing the same hackneyed excuse every season - injuries. Every club in every competition has injuries. Good clubs focus on who is in the team not who is out & they keep winning. Sure Lee, the players you mentioned who are out of the side are talented but let’s face it we weren’t winning when they were in the side.

Looking at last night, the game was over at half time. Norwood then did what teams who are 10 goals up at that point do.They took their foot off the pedal & coasted & did what they had to do to play out time. Anything we did was irrelevant. We were comprehensively beaten.

We need to attract better quality players to the Club & develop a winning culture or else we will languish in mediocrity.

Oh, I agree with you 100%, WJ.

We are way short of being a good side right now   We have lost Snelling, Schmidt, Noble, Schill.
er, Bates, Agostino. Middleton (?)

However, IMO until we have a full salary cap, we will always be handicapped.

As I regularly said, until we stand up to the SANFL, as other clubs have, we won't improve.

Without a full cap, we can't compete evenly.  We need quality players, as we're feeling the effect of a lousy junior zone until recently, do there"s not much coming through just yet.

We need a quality tall forward, ruck back up and at least 3 quality mids.

We also need to decide if we're a football club or a business venture.  No point being profitable if we dish up football like last night.

With football club or business venture Lee we have to remember that they do go hand in hand to point.

With a Full Cap of say $450,000 not sure what it is, if we only have $250,000 or so to spend we will then get ourselves into financial hardship again.

Totally agree that we need the full salary cap but mindful of our fundraising ability.

Quite right, Mike, and I'll try to give an overview of our finances ASAP.

There is always a balance, but I feel the balance has swung too far to the business side.  We are not in a bad financial position anymore.  The SANFL funding helps greatly but I have been saying for some time that we will be debt free, or close to it, in 3 or 4 years anyway.

What has happened is that the salary cap has ripped the guts out of any chance of success.  The SANFL's conditions have consigned us to a bottom of the ladder position, regardless of the mid-season draft.  They haven't listened to any of our arguments at any stage and we're seeing the result now.

Murray Forbes has flagged a meeting soon for members and supporters and I'm sure the Board will listen to any thoughts we have.

It is essent6ial that we're united, supporters and club, but face up to where we want to be and work together towards that aim.  If the members make it clear to the Board that we want a full salary cap and are happy to forego the SANFL funding ($100K), or come to a compromise with the SANFL, the Board will listen.

The best solution and one I pursued without success, is to get the SANFL funding and also a full salary cap.  We are already the lowest football spend in the league and there are plenty of other conditions applicable anyway.

Unfortunately, the SANFL has always just said no, without discussion or reason.