Australian Football

Match Report

In the final game of Round 9, Sunday afternoon would see the Magpies host the Bulldogs at Alberton. The Bulldogs needed to play a more convincing style of football after the last few weeks, with unconvincing wins against the Eagles and West Adelaide in the past two games. 

But this time it was as if a sleeping giant was awoken, as the Bulldogs raced off to a 27 point lead at quarter time after landing home 7.4 to Port's 3.1. The reigning premiers then followed that up in the second term with a further 4.2, whilst choking up the Magpies attack to keep them to a miserly two behinds. Through unyielding support for Daniel Havelberg -- who would kick nine goals with no misses -- the Dogs continued to run rampant when the half time break finished, another hail of goals for Centrals -- 7.3 to 2.2 -- would see the margin extended to 82 points by three-quarter time. They took the foot off the gas for the rest of the game, Port outscoring the Dogs 6.2 to 4.2 to reduce the final margin to 70 points. 

Paul Thomas was named best for Central, while Port's usual suspect Jeremy Clayton was voted as their best.