Australian Football

Match Report

The first Saturday afternoon contest takes us down to the outer southern suburbs, to the Hickinbotham Oval in Noarlunga for the SANFL's own "Distance Derby" between the Panthers and the Bulldogs. Their last encounter was back in Round 6 at the Ponderosa, inaccuracy on goal saw the Dogs go down by 27 points in what would be the Panthers last win for the season as they went on to lose the next five games including last week against Norwood. 

The Dogs fortunes hadn't improved much, that was until last week when they hammered the Tigers by just over 16 goals. But on a windy afternoon down south they would go right back into their old habits, they could have been ahead by a couple of goals at the first change but kicked 2.4 to South's three goals without a miss to trail by two points instead. The Panthers' second quarter would end up being the game breaker, they kicked 6.4 and kept the Dogs to just one behind to go into the long break with a 41-point lead. When play resumed in the windy conditions the Panthers went into containment mode, ensuring the deficit wouldn't be changed much by the next break. They added a further three goals to the Dogs' 2.3 in the third term to stretch the lead to 44 points. This match was all about the gettable goals that Centrals sprayed wide, the Panthers' re-entering the winners circle as seven goal victors after a lowly 1.1 to 1.3 final quarter. 

Nick Little was voted South's best, Jarrod Schiller was voted Centrals' best.