Under 18s Report

South Adelaide vs Norwood
Round 4 - Hickinbotham Oval - 29/04/17

Goals: Colwell, Steele, Sampson 3, Tucker 2, Robertson, Kreuger, Illingworth, Wilkinson
Best: Irra, Colwell, McGree, Sparrow, Sowter, Tucker

South Adelaide's Under 18s have continued their impressive start to the season, with a spirited come-from-behind win against Norwood, taking down the Redlegs by 22 points at Hickinbotham Oval on Saturday afternoon.

Down by 14 points at the three-quartertime, the lads found a way to win with an 8.1 to 2.1 last quarter.

It was a struggle all day to get our game going the way we wanted. Credit to the opposition, who were better than us in most KPI areas in the first three quarters.

Some focus areas the team had discussed before the game were non-existent and this allowed Norwood to play the game on their terms.

At halftime, the coaching staff resisted the temptation to shuffle the team around and back the players in the roles they had played so well the week before and asked for some stronger compliance in a few areas.

This didn't work as well as the team would have liked. Again, credit to the Norwood players, who were still on top in most positions.

The coaches then made a few positional moves to try and create some run and carry, as well as some minor changes to our ball movement patterns.

The boys got on top in the centre square and stoppages in general, which gave us 11 forward 50 entries that we managed to score eight goals from.

Norwood still had their fair share of the ball in the last quarter, but our guys applied the highest pressure on the Redlegs ball carriers that they had all game.

In the end our players managed to find a way to win against the odds - we lost a player to injury early in the first quarter and another just after halftime.

Now it is time to recharge the batteries for one more game against North Adelaide (2:10pm, Saturday, May 6) before our first bye of the season.

Tony Bamford
Under 18s Head Coach

Under 16s Report

South Adelaide vs Norwood
Round 6 - Hickinbotham Oval - 29/04/17

Goals: Sladojevic 5, Dumesny 3, Bray-Wallace, Freitag, Matthews, Lippett, Ayris
Best: Fitzgerald, Sladojevic, Dumesny, Bruce, Lippett, Douglass

South Adelaide's Under 16s fell just a kick short of registering their first win of the season against Norwood on Saturday afternoon.

After a really solid week on the track the boys made a big emphasis on finishing off the last two games strongly.

We got off to a flying start kicking 3.2 to nothing in the first 10 minutes, but credit to Norwood as they slowly pegged the margin back to be even by quartertime.

The second quarter was very similar with Norwood kicking five goals to our three, but we also kicked five behinds and did not capitalise on our opportunities in front of goals.

The third quarter was once again an arm wrestle and we went into the final quarter only three points behind. This was the best opportunity for the players to be rewarded with a win.

The two sides went goal-for-goal in the last quarter and in the dying seconds we won the ball inside our forward 50. As we kicked it forward the siren sounded and we lost by five points just as Zac Dumesny was about to mark it 30m in front of goal.

Although we were very disappointed the players showed great fight in what was clearly our best game this year. We now face North Adelaide (11:50am, Saturday, May 6 at Prospect Oval) in our final game of the year and the players will be very hungry to get a win.

Clay Sampson
Under 16s Head Coach