Blustery conditions greeted players at Unleash Solar Oval Woodville today for round 2 of the AFL Women's National Championships. South Australia coming of an agonising 1 goal loss to QLD on day 1 were determined to work hard & take the game right up to the highly fancied Victorian team.
Victoria had the advantage of a 3 goal breeze kicking towards the scoreboard end got away to a good start when Phoebe McWilliams returning from injury kicking the first goal of the game when she took a strong grab 1 metre out. South Australia applied relentless pressure and worked really hard to bottle up the play. The Vics kicked 4 goals 4 from 17 inside 50's and took a 28 point lead into quarter time.
South Australia kicked with the wind in the 2nd quarter and worked hard to move the ball forward but were constantly repelled by the strong Victorian back line. The Big V kicked 2 goals and took a 41 point lead into the main break.
The teams came back from the half time break and Victoria again dominated
kicking 3 goals from 7 scoring shots. Loud cheers were heard when a Victorian player was tackled & pinged for holding the ball. South Australia's never say die attitude was on display as they gave it their all. Victoria were in front by 63 points at the last change.
Victoria swapped their backs & forwards in the last quarter and South Australia took full advantage as they continually attacked with the wind & were rewarded with goals to rookie Brittany Perry & Michele Reid. In a very encouraging effort SA outscored Victoria to win the last quarter by 7 points. When the siren sounded Victoria had run out 56 point winners.
Both teams worked very hard & SA should be very pleased with their endeavour. Victoria looked very impressive and will be working on fine tuning aspects of their game as they look to qualify for Saturday's Grand Final. Both teams now have a day off to recover before Friday's games at Adelaide University where Victoria will play QLD while SA takes on WA.
VIC: 4.4 6.5 9.9 10.10 (70)
SA: 0.0 0.0 0.0 2.2 (14)
Goals Vic: Phoebe McWilliams 2, Alisha Habib 1, Ash Guest 1, Daisy Pearce 1, Steph Chiocci 1, Bree White 1 Amy Catterall 1 Katie Loynes 1
Goals SA: Brittany Perry 1, Michele Reid 1
Best Players VIC: Natalie Wood, Kaz Paxman, Daisy Pearce, Bree White, Melissa Hickey
Best Players SA: Melissa Wilson, Tess Baxter, Kylie Guarino, Deni Varnhagen
Last Modified on 08/06/2011 22:22