Round 8 Hostplus SANFL League Match Previews

We’ve reached a point in the season where we’ve seen enough footy to form an opinion on which sides are looming as premiership contenders, which ones are likely to be a part of the finals action and those that are either right in, or battling to be in, the mix.

Which makes it interesting in last week’s Sunday Mail three journalists reported the teams they had seen record big Round 7 wins were serious contenders.

Clearly the reigning premier must be a chance and Val Migliaccio started his story with, “Sturt sent a chilling warning to the rest of the SANFL competition on Saturday, crushing Central District by 74 points”. Football Budget’s Steve Barrett, not to be outdone, kicked off his match report with, “Red-hot Norwood issued another striking statement of premiership intent, grinding North Adelaide into the dust with a 69-point win”. Then Luke Marchioro kicked in with, “The Eagles have further enhanced their credentials as an SANFL premiership threat by hammering Port Adelaide by 86 points”.

There’s no doubt these well-credentialled reporters were on the ball.

And what a wonderful prospect that this week the No. 1-ranked Eagles and second-placed Norwood are battling it out for top spot in a round that’s all about SANFL’s standalone clubs, with Adelaide and Port Adelaide having a bye.

But the AFL still will have a big impact on this game after its mid-season draft on Tuesday night. The Eagles, while rightly proud of their ‘footy factory’ and pleased three quality players have been given a chance they deserve at the highest level, have copped a significant hit – described on their Facebook page as “BANG! BANG! BANG!” – with Lukas Cooke snared by Melbourne, Max Beattie heading to Hawthorn and Liam Puncher going to Collingwood in quick succession with picks 11, 12 and 15. Between them last week against Port the trio had 71 possessions – out of the team total of 397.

“Red-hot” is the perfect description for the Redlegs right now.

While their eyes are not yet fixed on the Thomas Seymour Hill premiership trophy, last week they won the inaugural RM Williams Cup, which will be contested each year in North Adelaide-Norwood clashes at Prospect.

It’s only fitting the sides that won two premierships together as Norwood-North in the World War II competition should have a trophy on the line but last week there basically never seemed likely to be any winner other than Norwood.

The ruthless Redlegs were seven goals clear by half-time, then responded to a brief challenge by holding the Roosters scoreless in the last quarter.

All this with Magarey and Jack Oatey Medallist Harry Boyd still on the sidelines with his hand injury. Finn Heard, as he did last year, continues to step up in ruck with his powerhouse clearance work, setting the wheels in motion for the likes of Baynen Lowe and Nik Rokahr.

Coach Jade Sheedy likes the way the Legs are turning defence into attack, saying: “A lot of our good offence has come from good defensive behaviours. We’ve then been able to use our hands out of that, which has given us some really good looks forward of the ball.”

Funnily enough, Eagles mentor Sam Jacobs was on a similar wavelength after his men piled on the last eight goals against Port in a crushing win that kept them a game clear at the top of the ladder.

“It has become part of our identity, our ability to score off transition,” Jacobs said of the Eagles’ rebounding defence, the ball moving at pace from half-back to keep the scoreboard ticking over.

The worry for Eagles fans is Cooke and Puncher were key parts of this rebound. It all adds to the mix for a game that has more questions than answers right now. All with top spot on the line.

It’s fourth versus fifth with these sides feeling buoyant on the back of strong wins.

The Panthers produced their standout quarter of the season to open with a matchwinning seven-goal blast against West at Noarlunga. Midfielders Ollie Davis (27 disposals, nine tackles, six clearances) and Emile Finn-Brennan were on fire and small forward Jack Delean is proving a nightmare for opposition defences.

Coach Jarrad Wright was rightly delighted the Panthers “had the game on our terms, executed good pressure, were clean with our skills and got the ball in our front half with speed”.

South will need to produce more of that against a Sturt side that thumped Central in what Migliaccio described as a “brutal four-quarter masterclass”. Blues boss Martin Mattner said: “It’s probably one of our most consistent performances.”

A couple of Magarey Medallists showed why they won them, Will Snelling racking up 36 disposals, 12 marks and 12 tackles, while captain Tom Lewis led by example with 31 disposals and six tackles. And promising Luca Slade started with a bang, collecting eight kicks and four handballs in the first quarter on the way to 28 touches and two goals.

There’s “never a dull moment” is the way West Adelaide president Alison Surjan describes it. The Eagles would have to agree with that. And the Bulldogs, this week’s opponents.

After all the dramas of the past couple of weeks, the good news is either the Bloods or Bulldogs will be back on the winners’ list this week and feeling better about things.

Westies, who started the season so impressively under new coach Nathan Bassett, faced upheaval when last week’s clash against the Panthers had to be switched from Richmond Oval to Noarlunga after their changerooms were flooded by a rain deluge.

Surjan, in a message to members, impressively declared, “we have all been in the trenches together before and this is no different”, writing: “This unexpected occurrence may just be the catalyst that assists us to fast track further development so desperately needed here.”

The grandstand roof being blown off at Glenelg back in late 2016 looked like it might have all been a bridge too far for the Bays, in a financial crisis at the time, but look at what they’ve done in the decade since. We’re backing the Bloods, who have been working hard to transform their Richmond headquarters and become an on-field power again, to similarly bounce back.

Just like we’re backing Central – and coach Paul Thomas, who has been under some unreasonable scrutiny on ‘not-so-social media’. It’s happened before and no doubt it will happen again when the going gets tough out at the Ponderosa. After coaching the Bulldogs to a phenomenal seven premierships, even Roy Laird was under the blowtorch later in his extraordinary career when the Dogs actually weren’t making grand finals every year.

The Doggies are in an unfamiliar position on the bottom of the table but no-one would be more disappointed than Thomas after last week’s 74-point loss to premier Sturt. But, as we’ve said in this column before, Central has been more than competitive in most games this year and led in the last few minutes of three of them – including against West in Round 2 when a stunning Tom Scully goal tied the scores at the death. That ripper contest shows we have plenty to look forward to this week.

While near misses don’t help your premiership placing, Thomas has the runs on the board over the past four years. After Central finished ninth with four wins in 2022, Thomas has had the Dogs in the finals for the past three seasons – a feat only matched by modern powerhouses Glenelg and Sturt – fourth in 2023 with 10 wins, third in 2024 with 13 and fifth last year with 11.

And look at the top-end talent the Dogs have lost, including the likes Isaiah Dudley, Mani Liddy and Dougie Cochrane, along with four in last year’s draft. The club has made huge inroads with its clubrooms and facilities, the improvement in its juniors has been huge and the local talent clearly is abundant.

Thomas said he aimed to keep his young side focused. “Our guys just have to keep learning,” he said. “We had nine guys under 22 who have come through our junior system and are representing our community. We’ve just got to be patient with them.” Exactly right.

And sometimes it only takes one win to turn a season around.

Same for Westies, who lost huge ruck talent Caleb May to the Western Bulldogs on Tuesday. Unlike the flooding at Richmond, at least that was expected.

Don’t worry Tigers fans, no-one is forgetting the Bays in the fight for the flag.

A fighting loss at the hands of Taylor Walker-inspired Adelaide does not mean a club that has won three flags from five grand finals in the past seven years is in any way out of premiership contention.

Under new coach Matthew Clarke their 5-2 record is still just one game from top and don’t forget the Bays have beaten Sturt, Norwood and the Eagles this season.

And in the next three rounds they face three of the bottom four sides.

But, more than anything, that will be a warning for Clarke, who will know there is no such thing as an easy game in this comp.

The Tigers will need to be right on their mettle against a club that has been a strong rival and has already shown this season an ability to bounce back after a poor performance.

That’s what the Roosters had last week in a 69-point loss to Norwood.

They also copped a 69-point shellacking at the hands of the Eagles in Round 5 but responded with an excellent 22-point win at Noarlunga. And, after being beaten by Sturt by 59 points in Round 2, they knocked off Port at Alberton by 17.

But there’s no doubt they have lost some grunt with Oli Francou being picked up by West Coast in the mid-season draft.

He’s been averaging 31 disposals, eight tackles and six clearances and he has been dominant in each of the Roosters’ three wins, missing two losses through injury.

And ruckman Alex Van Wyk, who has gone to Port Adelaide, had 37 hit-outs last week against Norwood and is ranked fifth for knock ruckmen in the SANFL.