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Under-18s Match Report

South Adelaide @ Sturt
Round 5 - Peter Motley Oval - 28/04/19

Goals: Ryan, Flett 2, Reed, Sampson, Hamilton
Best: Williams, Austin, Spacie, Clifton, Kraemer, Nye

South Adelaide's Under-18s fell to a 58-point defeat at the hands of Sturt at Peter Motley Oval on Sunday morning.

This week we played our fifth game at away in a row. We are starting to forget what Noarlunga looks like!

This time we were away against Sturt at Peter Motley Oval in a 9.05am game due to a triple header, playing before our Reserves and League teams.

We had four changes to the team that won against Norwood in round 4, with Beau McCreery and Captain Aaron Douglass coming out due to State Under-18 commitments (which we also had Daniel Sladojevic, Damon Freitag and Darnell Tucker , who have spent the start of the season with the seniors, play in as well), while Zac Dumesny played in an All-Australian Under-17 game in Melbourne and James Grimley played his first Reserves game.

With these changes we brought Sam Hindes back into the team, Jack Fitzgerald played his first game for the year and Shane Pettiford and Jack Flett played their first Under-18 game.

Playing at 9.05 am on a Sunday morning is not ideal preparation for an elite competition, but both teams had the same conditions to which Sturt seemed to have prepared better.

The Double Blues jumped out at the start of the game, controlling the ball when they had it, taking 28 more marks for the quarter and putting us under pressure when we had the ball, which caused us to make mistakes that they then capitalised on.

Sturt kicked the first five goals of the game and six for the quarter, five of which were from our turnovers.

In the second quarter we managed to even out the possession, Liam Hamilton kicked a goal seven minutes in and Ben Ryan kicked his second 19 minutes in to bring us back within 21 points. However, we gave up two late goals in the last five minutes of the quarter and went in at halftime down 34 points.

For the first half of the third quarter, we battled and managed to kick the first goal through first gamer Flett. It looked as if we might be able to fight our way back into the game.

However, in the second half of the quarter we hardly touched the footy. Sturt kicked three goals and extended their lead to 52 points.

We started the last quarter well and began to look and play how we should have started the game.

Matthew Reed kicked his first two minutes in and we evened up the possession count for the quarter.

But again it was our turnovers that proved costly and Sturt kicked 4.1 from our mistakes and ultimately ran out 58-point victors.

It was a disappointing day, but I'm sure we can learn a lot from it. This starts with or preparation. We move forward to round 6 against West Adelaide, as we play in yet another away game.

Round 6
South Adelaide @ West Adelaide
City Mazda Stadium (Richmond) - Saturday 4th of May at 11.00am

Mark Clayton
Talent Manager

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