SANFLW Development Squad Match Report – Round 2

SANFLW Development League Round 2

Coming off a successful first round win against North, our reserves women’s team faced the Eagles on Friday night at home. We were determined to continue the winning form and look to bring a strong contest. As with most reserve grades we had significant movement in personnel going into the game with 10 changes as we look to prepare and develop players for league opportunities.

Exciting news for one of our younger players in Emma Kilpatrick who performed well the week before getting to debut in the league team and Olivia Smith also getting promoted after a long stint missing with injury.

We welcomed in West Adelaide debutants at senior level in Teagan Usher, Renee Holmes, Kaylee Biddell (actually playing first game of football) and two of our young players coming through the U16’s program in Charlie McDonald and Asha Dufour.

Ins: Natasha McKay, Tiana Fernandez, Bethany Sigley, Ebony Barrenger, Jessica Chyer, Renee Holmes, Teagen Usher, Kaylee Biddell, Asha Dufour, Charlie McDonald.

Outs: Emma Kilpatrick, Olivia Smith, Scarlett Griffiths, Lucy Moloney, Paxton Mattner, Astrid Powell, Erin Horsnell, Saraid Kustermann, Abbie Butler, Sarah Campbell.

We lost the toss and kicked into a strong breeze and unfortunately were caught napping in the first 5 minutes with 2 goals to the Eagles. Credit to the Eagles who brought a strong contested game and didn’t allow us to find easy football, forcing us to make numerous errors by hand and foot. Their tackling pressure seemed to unsettle us early. We eventually settled and tightened the game and went into the first break down by 11 points.

1^st Qtr : West 0.2 – 2 to Eagles 2.1- 13

Kicking with the breeze in the 2^nd quarter we found plenty of football, but our skills continued to let us down, repeatedly fumbling, dropping marks and misdirecting kicks. We failed to capitalise on our dominance and went into the first break still trailing only able to score 1 goal with the wind from a clever bit of soccer work from Renee Holmes. Our wings in Lily Johnson and Asha Dufour were winning plenty of football and Teagan Usher and Renee Holmes gave us a real spark around the ball and up forward.

Half time: West 1.4 – 10 to Eagles 2.2 – 14

We knew the 3^rd quarter was the key to staying in the game. Going into the breeze we needed to stand strong and limit the Eagles scoring opportunities. For 15 of the 17 minutes our backline battle strongly and kept the Eagles goalless until they managed to sneak a late one.

Kaylee Biddell in her first game of football won nearly every tap and Charlotte Spence on ball played her best quarter for the year, Teagan Usher continued to find the football and Mikaela Lappin battled hard in ruck and around the contest.

3rd Qtr: West 1.4 – 10 to Eagles 3.3 – 21

Trailing by 11 points we knew if we could just tidy up our skills and start finishing better by foot that we were playing better and seemed to have more run than the Eagles.

The last quarter saw exactly that where we started to create numerous opportunities up forward and finally able to finish off and score a couple of goals to take the lead late in the quarter to get away with a 5-point win.

Kicking 2.5 in the last quarter was a result of us dominating inside 50’s and finally creating scoring opportunities.  It wasn’t a pretty win, but it was well deserved as we controlled the game after the first 10 minutes and continued to fight it out despite our skills being down. We look forward to taking on Centrals at home next Saturday to continue our strong start to the season with many new players pushing for selection.

Full Time: West 3.9 – 27 defeated the Eagles 3.5 – 22

Best players: Teagan Usher, Charlotte Spence, Lily Johnson, Asha Dufour, Mikaela Lappin

Goal Kickers: Renee Holmes, Sadie Lienert, Bethany Sigley 1

Michael Wakim
Development League Coach