Australian Football

Match Report

In the final match of Round 5, the Panthers hosted the Eagles at Hickinbotham Oval in Noarlunga. South's last win against the Eagles came back in mid-2012, a 19-point victory that would be sandwiched in between two sets of Eagles hat-tricks that ended with the most recent clash where the Panthers went down by 68 points at Woodville in Round 19 last year. Fast forward to today and no-one has been able to halt the Panthers yet, four wins from four games while the Eagles have taken one hit to their 2014 campaign thanks to Port.

As expected early on, the Panthers started off best with a 3.2 to 1.1 opening quarter to lead by 13 points at the first change. The Panthers kept up their efforts in the second quarter, adding a further 5.1 to 3.4 to extend their advantage to 22 points by the long break. But late in that quarter, an injury cloud would start to form as the South bench started going empty. With this, the Eagles would take full advantage. The Panthers would be held goal-less in the third quarter, only managing two behinds while the Eagles' full strength side rammed home 6.2 to take over the lead, getting ahead by 14 points by three quarter-time. The depleted Panthers didn't give it up too easily, but with no bench to utilise and some old faces coming back to haunt them, the blue and whites would ultimately be overwhelmed by the visitors in the end as the Eagles kicked three goals to South's 3.4 in the final term to leave Noarlunga with a 10-point win.

Luke Jarrad was named best for the Eagles, the Panthers would vote in Josh Thewlis as their standout.