Australian Football

Match Report

This week was last chance saloon time for these two sides in the Preliminary Final as the Double Blues faced the Eagles. In Preliminary Finals, the Blues have featured in 18 for eight victories. That eighth win came from last year's outing against the Crows where the Blues won by 35 points on their way to the flag. Their 1976 and 2002 premiership years also passed through here. The 2008 prelim was their most recent defeat, the Tigers handing the Blues an 11-goal hiding. Despite getting some revenge the following season, like the Tigers of '08, the Blues would fall victim to the Bulldogs in the decider. For the Eagles, their tally stands at six wins from 11 appearances. Back in 2011, a first week defeat from Norwood by 61 points saw them having to take the hard road to premiership glory. Two weeks later in the Preliminary Final, the Eagles back-handed the Redlegs by 44 points on their way to a flag against the Dogs. This was true vengeance for the previous year where the 'Legs eliminated the Eagles in the 2010 prelim. Most of the Preliminary Finals in the 2000's involved the Eagles during their long-running Grand Final feuds with Centrals. Before the merger, West Torrens were involved in five games for three wins, while Woodville featured in only one game and that was a loss. Against each other in this final, this was only the second time the Eagles and the Blues have clashed with the last meeting back in 2000 where the Eagles won by 22 points.

Over the course of the regular season, the Eagles took both matches with wins in Round 3 at Unley and then in Round 13 at Woodville. Both games were decided by less than three goals. The Eagles' month of madness continued into finals last week, after dropping their last home game to Centrals, they came off their minor premiership bye for the first week of finals only to crash against Port last week. The Blues saw off the Bulldogs in their bid to keep their premiership defence alive and as expected they ran into an Eagles outfit just as desperate to stop the rot. The rot wasn't totally gone though, the Eagles having a horrid opening quarter in front of goal. They scored 1.3 while the Blues put through 3.1 to lead by 10 points at quarter-time. Both sides would score 2.1 in the second term to leave the deficit unchanged going into the half-time break. The Eagles had definitely stepped up their efforts for this game, it was an improvement over their 2nd Semi-Final effort against Port. But again, like they proved against the Dogs last week, the Blues' more polished and efficient movement was the difference maker. Despite having more disposals, the Eagles also coughed up more turnovers. The gap crept out to two straight kicks by the final change, the Blues scoring 2.2 to the Eagles' two goals in the third term. The Blues would hold firm in the final term, matching everything the Eagles could throw at them. Sturt kicked 4.3 to 3.1 to finish off 20-point winners, setting up a grandstand season finish against Port. 

Matt Crocker was named best for Sturt, the Eagles named Joe Sinor as their best afield.