Australian Football

Match Report

The west-siders went at it at the newly-christened Maughan Thiem Hyundai Oval in Woodville where the Eagles faced the Bloods in the ABC-televised match. Despite the Eagles' premiership hangover woes last year, they still managed to put one over their western rivals in order to finish within the top five. A low-scoring affair at Oval Avenue in the final round saw the Bloods go down by 16 points, only 12 goals kicked from 28 scoring shots overall. With the demise of Unleash Solar, the Eagles would find a new oval sponsor in the aforementioned Port-side car dealership so things were looking up... but then came the Bloods, determined to spoil the party.

An inaccurate first quarter by the visitors saw them take a 15-point lead at quarter-time after kicking 5.5 to 3.2. The stray shooting continued in the second term where the Bloods kicked just 2.4, but the Eagles were really struggling by this point as they failed to find the big sticks and scoring just two behinds. From here, the West Adelaide machine kicked into a higher gear. They left the Eagles in their wake when play resumed, starting in the third quarter where they rammed home 7.3 to a rather poor 1.1. At the final change, the Bloods were already home and hosed with their 67-point lead. The damage done was a shared effort, Westies would end up boasting seven main contributors to their score who each scored two goals as they added a further 4.2 to the Eagles' 3.3 in the final term to run out 72-point winners.

Chris Schmidt was named best for the Bloods, while the Eagles named Andrew Ainger as their standout.