Australian Football

Match Report

We begin with a Saturday mid-day kick-off, the first game of the round taking us to the outer north and into the X-Convenience Oval in Elizabeth where the Bulldogs faced the Panthers. The Dogs couldn't take a trick against the Panthers last year, going down in the season opener at Noarlunga by almost 10 goals and then got pantsed early at the Ponderosa in Round 16. The Dogs fought back from being seven goals down at half-time, taking advantage of South's third term inaccuracy. But they couldn't maintain the rage, going down by five goals in the end. South almost pulled off their own heist against the Tigers last week, but whether it was an umpiring blunder or not, the Panthers fell five points short. The Dogs fought hard to draw with West, although they could have easily nicked all the points.

The fight that they put up last week seemed to have been left behind at the Oval, but South's accuracy would set a gap of just nine points at the first change, having scored 2.4 to 1.1. The second term was far better by the Bulldogs, they squared up the scores at 25 points each by the long break after kicking three goals without a miss to South's 1.3. But Centrals' second half would leave their faithful ripping their hair out. The Dogs were kept to a miserly single behind, South adding an inaccurate 2.4 to lead by 15 points going into the final change. The Panthers' inaccuracy was not a problem in the last quarter, yet again saving their best football for late as they stormed off to a 44-point victory after slamming through 6.1 to 1.2 to finish off the day.

Joe Haines was named as best for the Panthers, while Centrals named the returning James Boyd as their one true bright light.