West V Sturt

West Adelaide forward Riley Thilthorpe will be rested for the clash against Sturt at Hisense Stadium.

The teenage AFL Draft prospect has carried a heavy load for the Bloods in his first full season of senior football this year.

Tall forwards Jade Cleeland and Hamish Ellem are in the mix to replace Thilthorpe after being named on the extended interchange bench.

Lyndon Hupfeld, who has spent the past couple of games in defence, has also been named at full forward.

William Mead and possible debutant Reed Stevens (20, 182cm and 80kg), the younger brother of premiership midfielder Kaine Stevens, have also been added to the 25-man squad.



F: Johnson, Hupfeld, Waite

HF: B. Turner, Keough, C. Fairlie

C: Haysman, Squire, Dunkin

HB: May, Levicki, Duval

B: Anderson, Ryan, Hill



R: Parrella, K. Stevens, Boyle

INT: Mead, P. Fairlie, Morrish, Cleeland, Koster, Ellem, R. Stevens

IN: Cleeland, Ellem, R. Stevens, Mead

OUT: Thilthorpe (Managed)

NEW: Reed Stevens (Canberra)



Reserves
Agostino, Caruso, Chamberlain, Couroupis, Elliot, Faulkner, Forbes, Gilbert, Groom, Harris, Kirk, Martin, McKenzie, Nield, Pearce, Rana, Sareen, Sherlock, J.Stevens, Taylor, White, Wooldridge



Under-18
F: Zinndorf, Heitmann, Aldridge
HF: Richardson, Young, Iuliano
C: O’Connor-Dawkins, Burbridge, Long
HB: Griffiths, Sinderberry, Venning
B: Van den Berg, Midwinter, Baltagie

R: T. Faulkner, Virgo, Kennedy
INT: Desira, Pridham, Baker, Courtney

Surely we travel to Hisense arena tonight with some optimism?
Have we got our best team on the park tonight? - No, but it the best team available. I am sure that the injury report/update left a few names off.
Sturt are not travelling that well at the moment (and neither are we i know) but with the home ground and hopefully the home CROWD advantage the boys can get the job done.
Call me the eternal optimist for thinking that we can win tonight but I would rather have my glass half full rather than half empty.

As always
GO THE BLOODS.

Yes, I think this is a very winnable game.

I'll be there.

So will I but I'm not confident. We always seem to find a way to lose.

Well with Cleeland playing in the reserves looks like we are going to be beaten in the rucks again . We have been beaten in the ruck the last 2 weeks have not managed a score from the main ruckman this year .

Reserves had a late rally,but lost by just over 4 goals

The good news is:

Sturt haven't scored since halfway through the first quarter.

Our o
pressure is excellent.

We're dominating play.

Sturt are terrible so far.

New game after half time, though.

Very poor crowd, about 700 to 800 roughly.

Not exciting watching 50 ball ups from packs in a half.

We're doing well at clearances in particular, I'd guess.

Contested footy with our boys putting pressure on the blues and forcing turn overs. We should be further in front if we can hit lead up forwards I50s - we can’t expect grabs if we are kicking at their toes or over the top of the heads. How many times do we have the opportunity to go deep into the forward line but no one home. Surely we can keep 1 forward deep inside the 50. Kicking side wards to allow time for the fwds to run back down the ground. Good start and hope we can take it up a notch in the 2nd half. Go Bloods!!

Another terrible loss.
The club is in shambles on and off the field
On the field it’s pretty self explanatory.
Off field, just look at the clubs Facebook page.
Something as easy as the score we can’t even get right.
Person running the Facebook page put Westies were trailing at 3qtr time, yet the score they put up had us winning ‍�
Shambles on and off the field. Hard to find any positives

Too often all the forwards play down the ground which is the reason we can’t score and lose again. Fast direct footy wins games not the style we play. It’s proven teams that kick 100 + points a lot of their games play finals, look at our scores in 2015. Along with a lot of poor foot skill errors the type off footy we play will have us waiting a long time again for success. Need fast direct footy, hold forwards (at least one) inside 50 and things would be different.

Get somebody to tell the players the object of the game is to get the ball through the two big sticks at each end of the ground not on the side of the ground.

That was a heartbreaking loss in a weird game.

The winning team didn't score even a behind for about 45 minutes of play.

One team scored the first 3 goals, then we scored the next 7, then they scored the next 6, followed by a goal each.

Once again, one  opposition forward scored at least 3 goals.

Sturt were just about gone early in the 3rd quarter, but we couldn't quite put them away. Once the momentum changed, we were always going to struggle.

Early on, it was good to see Murray Waite's run and penetration, but although a lack of elite fitness isn't obvious, our second halves have seen us lag well behind.

Jordan Boyle and Kaine Stevens were generally good,     but too many fell out of the game after good first halves.

Tom Morrish and Hamish Ellen (he'll be better next season) are great kicks for goal from distance.

We need to win games like these, especially as I felt Sturt were pretty ordinary.

There are so many deficiencies, it’s hard to know where to start.
We need more from our ruckman. He had 1 kick and took 1 mark for the game. Was he injured?
We have had good leads in 3 matches this year and lost all 3.
Boyle and Duval are postives but we are going to finish this season with 1 solitary win
On a side note, the game itself was absolute rubbish to watch. Time to change the rules to stop the rolling scrums.
The game has gone too defensive and scoring is too low.
It gets to a point where you say, this is not worth paying money to watch!

It was, and has been for a long time, poor kicking into the forward 50.
Sooooo many uncontested defensive marks by Sturt.

I thought the same about the spectacle, Wolfpack.

In a game of about 100 minutes, there were 112 hitouts.

112 ball ups or throw ins.

From one pack to another pack, a rolling maul, interspersed with a brief passage of play. When you add to that the chip around the defensive 50 marks, the spectacle really suffers.

Crowds are dropping off, understandably.

Another loss we managed to achieve from a winning position.
Our ability to kick with precision to the opposition is awe inspiring. If we can just get them to kick to the red and black jumper instead we might just be a chance. Perhaps a colour blindness test might be in order as we clearly have many players not be able to tell the difference.
In addition the footy gods definitely don't like West. Sturt did not miss one shot at goal all night. Their solitary point was rushed across by us.
That was our last chance for a win this year in my view.
I hope we recruit well for next year but I am not confident at all going on recent performances in that area. We were told the new appointed board would make us strong. No sign of that yet in fact I would venture to say we are worse.

Yet another pathetic performance by a side going no where.
Leading by over 4 goals half way through the third qrt and lose agin is unforgivable.

IS OUR FITNESS UP TO SANFL STANDARD? I’m asking this question yet again as this has been a recurring theme that we have been in winning positions in games over the past 3 years only to lose.

As a spectacle the game was woeful, but Sturt want to play that way And we simply cracked again.
We won’t win another game.

I watched half of our Under 18 game at Woodville yesterday.

Unfortunately we were awful, saved only by a better second half after the result was clear at half time.

Luke Youmg looks a player, but the cupboard is fairly bare.

The game was notable for the 47 possessions of Sturt's Tom Powell.

WA 8-6
ST 10-1

Sturts point was a rushed behind
Interesting decision to award James Battersby a free kick and goal late in the last quarter

West need to get over the line, and find some belief, as are playing well in patches

I thought we actually made fewer mistakes with the footy this week, though that might just be because we had 70 fewer disposals than the previous week. But we don't seem to know how to move the ball into our forward 50 to our advantage.
The other thing we haven't improved over the last few years is our inability to arrest an opposition's momentum.
I think that's now 1 last quarter we've won this season out of 10.
Positives? Mead showed something.

Our last quarters have been a continuing problem for years now, unfortunately.

Also a reminder that there's only 5 days left to pre-order my book, a must for all Bloods' supporters.


http://tiny.cc/flagsspoonsknives

https://westadelaidefc.com.au/news/colvilles-corner-round-10/

Gavin's summary.