2025 Hostplus SANFL League Preliminary Final Preview

Preliminary Final

Glenelg v Norwood | 3:15pm | Live and free on Seven and 7Plus | Live radio on 1629 SEN SA & SEN App and FIVEAA

Head to Head – Overall
Played – 272
Glenelg – 113
Norwood – 158
Drawn – 1

Head to Head – Finals
Played – 21
Glenelg – 8
Norwood – 13

Recent Form
Glenelg has won the past four encounters

Last Finals Meeting
2024 Grand Final – Glenelg 12.9 (81) d Norwood 11.10 (76) at Adelaide Oval

2025 Meetings
Round 18 – Glenelg 11.9 (75) d Norwood 9.5 (59) at The Parade
Round 4 – Glenelg 18.11 (119) d Norwood 11.10 (76) at Stratarama Stadium

Glenelg has won its past four clashes against Norwood – including last year’s epic grand final.

The Bays have not been lower than fourth on the premiership table and they were in second spot for the last 11 rounds of the home-and-away season.

Norwood was in the bottom four for the first 11 rounds of the season, wasn’t in the top five until Round 18 and hadn’t beaten a team in the top four when the finals kicked off.

But it’s a whole new ball game.

What’s happened in the past 20 weeks of footy for these rivals now counts for nothing as they head into a tantalising preliminary final match-up with the Redlegs on a stunning surge out of nowhere and the Tigers having copped a reality check with a 42-point second semi-final loss at the hands of minor premier Sturt.

First Norwood couldn’t win a game. Then it couldn’t string two wins together. Now Norwood can’t stop winning.

The Redlegs were struggling with injuries when Jade Sheedy kicked off his coaching stint at The Parade with five successive losses. It took until Round 18 to have strung consecutive wins together but, as the Eagles and Port Adelaide couldn’t win when it counted, the Legs found the winning formula and snatched fifth place.

Now they’ve snared five victories in a row – including finals wins against Central (fourth after the minor round) and Adelaide (third) – as they set their sights on the Tigers.

But let’s not start talking of back-to-back reigning premier Glenelg in any way like its hopes of a historic first flag hat-trick has been derailed. Before last week’s second semi-final, the Bays had won eight games in a row.

Count them, eight. And at half-time last week they led Sturt by 12 points and there were people starting to write off the Double Blues!

One half of football in a final when you’ve earned the double-chance does not define your season, so the Redlegs will know they have a huge fight in front of them if they are to advance to another grand final.

They will remember full well how Glenelg looked down and out at times in last year’s premiership decider. Norwood led at each of the breaks and was leading 19 minutes into the last quarter but the Tigers still found a way to win it.
The Bays rightly will have consigned a disappointing half of footy against Sturt to history. It’s a whole new ball game for Glenelg as well.

Don’t for a moment forget the quality of this Tigers line-up. You don’t get five players in The Advertiser SANFL Team of the Year for nothing, these superstars of our comp being last year’s seven-goal grand final hero Liam McBean (captain), Lachie Hosie, Matthew Allen, Jonty Scharenberg and Jarryd Lyons, who has had a sensational return to the SANFL and continued to show his class and coolness under pressure in the second semi-final.

And James Bell and Cole Gerloff could consider themselves unlucky to have missed spots in the all-star side.

But Norwood continues to defy the odds, sending the Crows crashing out in straight sets by 34 points after knocking over the Bulldogs by three goals in the elimination final.

Billy Cootee – sixth in the league this season for disposals, equal sixth for clearances and seventh for tackles – and Nik Rokahr – No.1 for disposals, equal sixth for clearances and eighth for tackles – have been sizzling in the major round, while Jacob Kennerley continues to inspire in his leadership.

Ruckman Finn Heard keeps growing in stature – in the top-10 for clearances and tackles and top-five for hit-outs. And someone seems to pop up when needed, like Jayden Gale did to boot a career-high five goals as the Legs charged away from Adelaide.

It’s all up for grabs in this new ball game.