Australian Football

Match Report

At Gliderol Stadium in Glenelg where the Tigers faced the Bloods. Westies smashed the Tigers from pillar to post back in Round 8 last season, sending the Bays back to Tiger-land with their tails practically chopped off after a 98-point hammering at Richmond. But amazingly, later in the season in Round 15 the Tigers managed to salvage a little pride in the closing stages of the season after taking an eight-point win at Glenelg. Quite the crowd turned up for this game, a little over 2600 people coming in on a fine afternoon. But after today, some would probably be scurrying back into their hidey-holes.

The Bloods were on a mission and it showed early as they rammed through 6.3 to the Tigers' 2.4, West taking a 23-point lead at quarter-time. The Bloods would multi-task in the second term, keeping the Tigers to a miserly two behinds whilst bagging a further 7.2 for themselves to break the game apart. At half-time, the Bloods were away to a 65-point lead. The Tigers were being made to look like absolute amateurs and that the axe was hanging above some heads, something that coach Matt Lokan alluded to later post-match. The rampage continued when play re-commenced, the Bloods smashing through 8.1 to the Tigers' 3.2 to stretch the already insurmountable gap to 94 points. The crowd by this point probably dropped several hundreds and it was probably understandable in the end, the Tigers were getting humbled in the worst way. Their only saving grace is probably that they managed to score more than 10 goals in the end. But the gap would still be enlarged by game's end, West kicked 9.3 to 6.3 in the final quarter to record a 112-point demolition job.

Jason Porplyzia scored four goals and took best afield honours for West, while the Tigers named Sam Lonergan as their standout on a dark afternoon.