Australian Football

Match Report

Match highlights in the video above. Full replay below. 

Hi Footy fans...

19 rounds and three weeks of finals lead to this point. The 2015 season will probably be remembered mostly for some constantly niggling controversies as well as the unfortunate loss of a precious life. But the end of the six month journey was finally in sight for the last two clubs remaining in the hunt for the biggest prize in South Australian football. With both AFL sides out of the finals, all attention could be soaked up for our big day which, ironically, ended up being on that "one day in September" unlike the big league which would end up being played in early October. On a bright, sunny Sunday afternoon in the SA capital, it would be a "West Side Story" battle for the 2015 SANFL premiership flag and the Thomas Seymour-Hill Trophy.

Welcome to the final edition of the SANFL Wrap-Up for this year... the 2015 SANFL IGA League Grand Final.

First lets talk about West Adelaide... their grand final success was stretched rather thinly in the 20th century. Established in 1897, their first premiership success came in back-to-back form in 1908 & 1909. The former was capped off with a national championship. They would take another flag double in the 1911 & 1912 seasons, from there it was long times between drinks with big gaps between premierships. One of their most talked about victories came in 1961, known as the "Turkish Bath" grand final because of the oppressive 35 degree heat in which the Bloods took out their seventh flag under the captaincy of SA football legend Neil Kerley. Which brings us to their last premiership victory, the 1983 Grand Final where the Bloods took a 34-point win against the Double Blues with, yep that's right, Neil Kerley in the coaches' box. From there it was a fruitless 31 years which yielded a further three grand final appearances. One of those was the other most talked about piece of Westies history, their horror loss to the Roosters in the 1991 "Blood-bath" decider which saw the Bloods' pre-bounce tactics backfire horribly and then descended into chaos and brawls. 12 years later, they fell victim to the Bulldog juggernaut in the 2003 decider and would then lose star player Adam Cooney to the AFL. Their last appearance in the big dance came in 2012, but in what would be the start of the Redlegs' triple premiership reign they went down by 49 points. This season, they finished third on the ladder and after going down to Port in the final minor round match would reverse the result in the Qualifying Final. After a defeat to the Eagles in the 2nd Semi-Final, they would rebound to book their place in the premiership decider with their dominant victory against the surprise finals entrants in the Bulldogs.

Now we get onto the Eagles. The Woodville-West Torrens Football Club was created in 1991 in the wake of the Crows entry into the AFL, the result of the amalgamation of the Woodville Warriors and the West Torrens Eagles. As separate entities, the Warriors started life in the SANFL premier division in 1964. Their existence in the league was relatively unremarkable with no premierships to their name aside from the old Cup competitions which they won in 1972 & 1988. The Eagles, however, would take four premierships mainly in the earlier half of the 20th century. The two teams would face each other in the final round of the 1990 season before the merger in time for the 1991 season. A turbulent couple of seasons played out, with some of the supporters still rather divided. That division would be conquered and healed only a couple of seasons later, the Eagles taking out the 1993 premiership against Norwood. After finishing runners-up the next season, the turbulence came back with just two more finals appearances up until 1999. During the period of 2000 to 2014, the Eagles came back into the finals frame on several occasions and featured in six grand finals. All of those were against their new-found rivals in Central District, winning two of those six games in the 2006 and 2011 seasons. The following three appearances in finals were disappointments to say the least, with a fourth-placed finish in 2013 sandwiched in between first week exits in 2012 and 2014. They were probably the surprise package in 2015, finishing minor premiers with just two losses to their name and defeated the Bloods in the 2nd Semi-Final to book their Grand Final spot.

This would be the first time these sides ever clashed in a Grand Final, not even during the times of West Torrens did they ever face the Bloods in a premiership match. Throughout the season, the Eagles have been known as first quarter specialists, but it was the Bloods taking the early initiative with Shannon Green getting the ball rolling with the first goal of the game after three minutes. The early minutes finding the Bloods very adept at repelling the Eagles' attacks, with the ball ending up in defence several times for little reward. Aaron Fielke scored the Bloods' second before the Eagles would take their first major, Michael Wundke scoring a double within a couple of minutes. But it would be the Bloods with the quarter-time lead, Travis Tuck and Daniel Webb taking two goals in time-on to have the scoreboard read 4.1 to two goals at the first change. Errin Wasley-Black and Jon Beech took the first couple of goals in the second term, but some inaccuracy crept into the Bloods' camp with some crucial misses keeping the Eagles in the contest as Westies' scoring power was brought to a halt. The Eagles would have been in front at the long break had some of their own shots on goal landed true, but the gap would be drawn back to eight points at half-time thanks to the boots of Andrew Ainger, Jared Petrenko and a third to Wundke's tally. The half-time scoreboard would show the Bloods at 6.5 to the Eagles' 5.3.

The third quarter would end up being quite the arm-wrestling contest, Wundke taking his fourth goal within two minutes of the restart, West answering back not too long after with easy walk-in goal to Webb, then Green added his second goal at 10 minutes to make it a 13-point gap. Ainger would score a vital Eagles' goal on the cusp of time-on, but a mad scramble in the Bloods' 50 saw Kaine Stevens score their third goal for the quarter to take their advantage back out to three straight kicks. At three quarter-time, the Bloods were ahead by 14 points after the combined 3.2 to 2.2 "premiership quarter". Unfortunately for the Eagles, they would have nothing left for the final term and not even Westies' final term goal-kicking yips could stop them from claiming their first premiership since 1983. The Eagles would score just one behind, the Bloods would score 2.5 with the goals taken by Beech and Green. West Adelaide would win by five goals, in front of just over 25,000 SA footy-heads, not a bad turnout considering that the fan bases of both clubs haven't been known to be extremely high, with many interested onlookers including travelling country football teams turning out on a pristine afternoon. Chris Schmidt would be named best on ground and took out the Jack Oatey Medal in his 105th game for West Adelaide, finishing with 44 disposals, 10 marks and five tackles. For the Eagles, Michael Wundke's four goals would see him named their best on a forgettable afternoon. This was a breakthrough for Bloods' coach Mark Mickan, premierships eluding him as both a player at West and missing flag opportunities as coach at Glenelg in 2008 and 2009.

FINAL SCORES IN WEEK 4 OF THE SANFL FINALS...

Sunday September 27
2015 SANFL IGA LEAGUE GRAND FINAL
West Adelaide 11.12 (78)
Woodville-West Torrens 7.6 (48)
25,625 @ Adelaide Oval

Jack Oatey Medal: Chris Schmidt (West Adelaide)

Well that's it for another season of football. Until next year... that's a wrap.

WEST ADELAIDE FC -- 2015 SANFL Premiers