West Australian Football

Western Australia has completed a successful interstate trip to Adelaide by producing a commanding 64 point victory over South Australia in the second round of the NAB National 18’s Championships.

The game began as a physical affair with the South Australian side attempting to unsettle the WA team. After handling the early physical approach with aplomb, the WA side were always in control of the contest and eventually blew the South Australians away with a nine goal to one second half.

WA Football Commission Talent & Coaching Manager Jon Haines, “The staff and players are ecstatic with the performance. For a lot of these players, this was their first experience of flying interstate to hostile territory and competing on such a big stage. It was a very even team performance and one that will give the group enormous confidence going forward”.

“Another pleasing aspect was the fact that we brought in a number of new players for this game and they all performed extremely well. Whilst the team does contain some high profile players, our lesser known players were absolutely terrific and really put their names up as players of the future”.

Leading goal kickers for WA were Nick Olds with 4 and Chris Yarran with 2, whilst the remaining goals were spread amongst a group of nine individual goal kickers.

Best players for WA were running half backs Jesse Laurie and Clancee Pearce whilst Stephen Hill again demonstrated his running capacity with an outstanding run with role on key SA midfielder Hamish Hartlett. Other players to feature prominently were half forward Neville Jetta, ruckman Nick Naitanui and midfielder Matt De Boer.

Final scores were WA 15.12 – 102 defeated SA 4.14 – 38.

WA’s next game is a third round clash against Vic Country on Saturday June 21st at Subiaco Oval.