Feast or Famine

By DION HAYMAN

Defender-turned-forward Sam Rudolph and retirement-bound Ben Moore were the unlikely heroes as Glenelg ended a 15-year run without a finals win against a devastated Sturt.

The Tigers had trailed all day before Moore goaled twice in time-on and then survived a shot at goal by ruckman Simon Feast, who missed from 20 metres.

Sturt should have already secured the double-chance but lost its final three minor round games – the last to North after leading by 38 points at half-time.

The wet conditions were tipped to favour the Double Blues’ brigade of inside midfielders and they were allowed to add defender Marty Mattner, who had played just one SANFL game that season. A stiff westerly tore across the ground making conditions difficult for scoring. But star full forward Brant Chambers, who began the day with 106 goals, added two in the opening term as Sturt stormed to a 21-point quarter-time lead.

Both sides suffered early casualties. Sturt forward Luke Crane was knocked out after a clash of heads with team-mate Tristan Gum, while Rudolph hobbled off after a push from Chambers late in the quarter.

“I remember going off thinking, ‘yeah, that’s my day done’, so I was pretty shattered,” Rudolph recalled. “I had a slight medial tear and had to have surgery at the end of the season. The doc taped it up and said it would be painful but I could play through it and I said, ‘yeah, get me back on’.”

Bays coach Mark Mickan had swung forward Jeff Smith back onto Chambers, triggering a swap of roles for Rudolph.

“He had used me before to pinch-hit in the forward line because I’d move around a bit more rather than just be a key target. I remember being on the bench and I think it was our club doctor who said to wait a minute and I thought, ‘I’ll wait until the play comes a little closer’. Our player had already come off and then I sort of just snuck on.”

Rudolph charged unmarked towards a vacant half-forward flank where he gathered before launching a shot from 45 metres. The breeze grabbed the kick and just dragged it inside the right post for Glenelg’s opening goal.

“It sort of just happened without me thinking about it too much. If I thought about it, I probably would have kicked it out-on-the-full.”

The Tigers cut the margin to 14 points by half-time and late in the third term, Rudolph took the first mark inside 50 by either side in nearly an hour. He passed to Josh Mahoney, who converted to haul Glenelg within seven points at the final change.

Chambers booted his fourth goal to restore a 12-point lead but Brett Backwell drove the ball deep into attack for Glenelg, where it reached Rudolph who soccered home at the back of the pack. Two minutes later, Crane, who had returned to the fold, found Chambers in the square for his fifth only for Rudolph to bob up again and bounce through his third from 35 metres. “I didn’t kick too many goals in my career so when I had the opportunity, I relished it,” Rudolph said.

Charlie Sharples tore down the grandstand wing and found Chambers again for his sixth goal – the margin back to 12 points after 17 minutes. But the ball ended in Moore’s hands after a free kick was paid downfield. Those frees favoured Glenelg 31-17 and The Advertiser’s Warren Partland labelled it “a disgrace”.

Moore had already announced his retirement ahead of his first league final.

“I was not having the best of days and Mark (Mickan) threw me forward in the last quarter because I wasn’t having much impact on the wing,” Moore remembered. He had only mustered two kicks for the day but his third, from 35 metres, cut the margin to just five points after swinging sharply in the wind.

“I reckon I aimed at the point post and it went through the goals. Maybe 10 or 15 years of footy experience might have come to the fore in my second-last game.”

His fourth kick moments later put Glenelg in front for the first time with the clock at 25 minutes. Ruory Kirkby, who had gained in influence throughout, thumped the ball into attack. Moore flew for the mark and barely laid a fingernail on it but bolted toward goal after seeing Adam Fisher gather the crumbs. Fisher’s handball found Richard Douglas who released Moore for the goal that extended his career by another week.

Facing a mad and sad Monday, Sturt responded with Sean O’Keefe hitting up a leading Gum 40 metres out. His shot from the grandstand flank skewed off the right side of his boot and into the hands of Feast, who outmarked Kirkby and Daniel Kirk in the scoreboard pocket.

A premiership star in 2002, Feast was 20 metres from goal and on the right side for a left-footer but had a stiff left-to-right breeze to negotiate. But he admits he may have outsmarted himself.

“I knew it was late in play and my normal routine would be to go back, put the ball on the ground, pull my socks up and then go through with the execution of it,” Feast recalled.

“But I didn’t put the footy down. My logic was that if you put the footy down, it stops play and I was confident enough that if I could keep the clock ticking and kick the goal and burn off enough 10 or 20 seconds, hopefully the end of the game was close.

“I remember kicking the ball, I struck it okay, I was aiming for the middle but the breeze pushed it from left to right. It was just poor execution. It’s Gummy’s fault! He was the forward, he should have kicked the goal from 40 metres out and he shanked it, so that’s who I blame it on anyway!”

The Bays survived another 50 seconds to end their finals drought and leave Feast, hand on hips, to lament what might have been – and suffer condemnation from his great aunt 12 months later. “She used to watch the ABC religiously and that game came up at Christmas the following year. My old Aunty Owl, who would have been 98 at the time, was getting stuck into me about missing the goal. I had to bite my tongue – but you do the crime, you do the time.”

GLENELG  0.2  2.3  4.6  8.9 (57)

STURT  3.5  4.5  5.7  8.8 (56)

BEST – Glenelg: Kirkby, Allen, Fisher, Kane, Backwell, Hinge, Mahoney. Sturt: Whiteman, Feast, Sheedy, Chambers, Deluca, Mattner.

SCORERS – Glenelg: Rudolph 3.0, Mahoney, Moore 2.0, Holmes 1.0, Backwell, Fisher, Allen, Ruwoldt, Sugars, Sellar, Douglas 0.1, rushed 0.2. Sturt: Chambers 6.2, Whiteman, Hurse 1.0, Crane, Gum, Feast, Thomson, Sharples 0.1, rushed 0.1.

CROWD – 11,476 at Adelaide Oval