Under-18s Match Report

South Adelaide vs Central District
Round 11 - Hickinbotham Oval - 23/06/18

Goals: Freitag 4, Renney 2, Marshman, Draper, Bastian, Bogle
Best: Manuel, Juckers, Davies, Bogle, Freitag, Marshman

Our Under-18's claimed another come-from-behind win over Central District at home on Saturday.

This week we played Centrals at home in perfect conditions and for the second game in a row we were able to come from behind to win a close one, claiming a 10.14 (74) to 11.6 (72) win in the dying moments.

It is a great to have the belief that we can do this, but we need to start better and not expect that we will be able to do this every week.

In the first quarter we were quite even in most of the key stats. Although Centrals were in front of a few of them we had our fair share. However, we were not able to get in a scoring position and when we turned the ball over Centrals seemed to score.

In the second quarter Centrals started to get control of the game. Although we both had the same amount of scoring shots, the Bulldogs converted their shots into 4.2 and we only managed to kick 2.4.

At one stage Centrals were able to extend their lead to over five goals.

One of the highlights for us in the first half was Mani Draper starting to get into the game kicking, he could have been even more damaging if not for kicking 1.4.

Our usual contributors Tate Lovering, Tyler Davies and Luke Bogle getting a bit of the ball.

Coming out of halftime we had a lot of work to do being 29 points down.

The third quarter we again addressed our overuse and played more direct, which paid of with us kicking 3.5 points to Centrals three goals straight. Although we were still 24 points down at three quarter time, we looked like we could get back into the game.

In the last quarter it took us over six minutes to kick our first goal, but that started us on our run.

Damon Freitag looked dangerous as a deep forward and we were disciplined enough to give him some space.

With a minute-and-a-half to go we were again on the good end of an anti-density rule which gave Sam Renney a shot for goal to put us a point up.

The last minute we got numbers around the contest and were trying to bottle the game up. Zac Dowling took a good mark and we controlled the football until we had a long shot which was rushed, and the siren went.

It felt like we got out of jail again with that one.

It was a great effort from the boys and there were a number of players who played great team games.

Jonty Manuel was great down back with short burst through the midfield, Danny Juckers played about his best game of the year down back and Freitag kicked four goals as a deep target forward.

Next week we will have a week off, with our next game coming against West Adelaide in a Panthers triple header at Hickinbotham Oval on Saturday, July 7. Our game kicks off at 9:10am, followed by the two senior sides.

Mark Clayton
U18s Coach

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