Given the boys were at Alberton at 5:30am for a 6am flight I thought I’d go out in sympathy by sleeping until 9 before a leisurely brunch on Semaphore Road. Sure, my morning wasn’t as hectic as theirs but I prepared as best I could for the match and despite the fly in/fly out nature of the fixture it looked like our boys had prepared well as again we started well.
The first quarter wasn’t one for the highlight reels but anytime your team is on top you take it and keeping the potentially lethal ( more on this later ) GWS forward line goalless in the first quarter showed we had the game on our terms and our zone was setting up better than it had against Brisbane last week. 4 scoring shots between the two sides on a ground that was clearly feeling the pinch of consecutive weeks of multiple AFL matches being played on it. With more footy to come on Metricon and the Gabba expect to see more players losing their feet.
After quarter time it was a little more entertaining as Amon snapped truly on his right, Gray popped his nose into the contest for the first time in several weeks when he did some Gray things on the boundary after some clever touches from Rozee set him up and when Motlop snapped one just before half time we went to the break 11 points up but it didn’t feel like we were on top. GWS had started to get the ball more in the midfield and had 6 shots to 5 for the term. Powell-Pepper was busy but wasteful, Jonas clunked a few marks instead of going the boundary line kill and Lycett was taking no crap from Mumford. I feel for those people who are around Shane Mumford on his birthday every year, being forced to sing Happy Birthday to him even though they don’t mean it.
The third term felt like we were keeping the wolves at bay. The Giants are ranked 17th for I50 entries, both of their fans must be frustrated by how wide they go when Finlayson, Cameron and Green are there waiting for opportunities to score. Mid way through the term I thought we were shot, Coniglio, Hopper, Perryman and Whitfield all started to get their hands on it, luckily for us they’re only new to kicking a football. Some of the foot skills from both sides were dead set ordinary, for us Farrell ( highly rated by this punter ) had his best day at AFL level and along with Houston and Burton gave us some polish with ball in hand and Dixons late mark to put us back in front came at just the right time. Hinkley had been using Marshall to draw GWS Nick Haynes away from the contest, he’s their third tall and where Marshall would normally be in Dixon’s space it was Westhoff yesterday playing closer to goal and he didn’t quite work as well in Dixon’s space. All good.
Finlayson opened the last term with a goal for the Giants and with the momentum well in their favour through the third I thought we might have been cooked. No, we weren’t. After taking a good grab on the 50m arc Butters handed off to the smooth moving Farrell who launched from inside the centre square and you don’t think the boys lapped that up? Almost to a man they got around him and within the next 10 minutes Motlop had fed Marshall one, Butters marked courageously going back with the flight and copped clip with the 50m penalty taking him to the goal line and it was all over then as we went out to a 22 point lead. Some behinds and late major the them left us 17 points for the good come the final siren.
For the third win in a row there really hasn’t been a stand out for who I thought was best, Farrell had his best game at the level, Houston his best game for a month, Gray his best game for the year, Amon another solid outing, Boak kept doing Boak, Powell-Pepper had some moments, Wines albeit wasteful kept doing the grunt work and you expect more errors from someone in and under, Byrne-Jones, Burton and Hartlett looked more of a trio in defence with Bonner out and Lycett had a match high 8 clearances helping us win that stat 41-25. Ebert will come under some scrutiny from the MRP and Sutcliffe has pinged a string so he’ll certainly been out.
Boons best – Farrell, Houston, Lycett, Boak, Powell-Pepper, Amon
Changes – I think Ebert will get a week so we’ll need to bring in two with Sutcliffe missing a few with a hamstring. I doubt Duursma will be back just yet so Bonner may come back into the side across half back / wing, Ebert’s replacement will be harder to pick, perhaps Dylan Williams could make his AFL debut or Sam Mayes come in for his first game in Port colours. That will be one to watch.