Australian Football

Match Report

In the inner southern suburbs at Envestra Park at Unley, the Double Blues hosted the Tigers. These teams opened the season under lights at the bay where the Blues served up a 43-point belting, their second win on the trot and only their fourth against the Tigers since the Preliminary Final in 2009. Amazingly, in that same year the Tigers won all three regular season encounters before bailing out of the finals in straight sets. There was also a seven-game losing streak that started in mid-2010 before the Blues stopped the rot at Unley last year.

The Blues would control the early proceedings, kicking 4.3 while the Tigers managed just one lousy behind to be up by 26 points at quarter-time. Despite finding the big sticks in the second quarter, all the Tigers could do was match the Blues goal-for-goal, Sturt adding three behinds to their tally to stretch the gap to 29 points by the half-time break. Astonishingly, the Tigers would return to the field with a bit of bite to start the second half. By three quarter-time, the Sturt faithful were no doubt chewing a couple of fingernails off as the Tigers closed to within a couple of kicks of the lead after scoring 5.1 to 1.3 in the third term. At the final change, Sturt was up by just seven points against the cellar-dwellers. The final quarter was an all-out scrap, but in the end victory would once again elude the men from Glenelg as the Blues kicked 3.3 to 2.2 to take out a 14 point victory much to the relief of the home crowd.

John Greenslade was named best for Sturt, while the Tigers named Matthew Snook as their standout.