SANFL 2006 ROUND 21: NORWOOD v WEST ADELAIDE

Dejected Legs fade year out

By ANDREW SPENCE

NORWOOD will be looking to salvage something from a disappointing season in its last SANFL match of the year against Sturt this weekend after a devastating 51-point loss against cellar dweller West Adelaide at Coopers Stadium on Saturday.

A disinterested Norwood side, out of the finals race, trailed the Bloods at every change, handing a jubilant West Adelaide only its second win of the year with little resistance.

“That's as bad as what you'd see any league club play on any given day,” Norwood coach Trevor Hill said of his side's performance after the game.

“We've been poor before but never that reactive.”

The Redlegs played like a side with little to gain from the match except to bring them one week closer to the end of the season.

A dejected Hill said his side had developed a mental and psychological weakness since its hopes of playing finals had been dashed with three successive losses against Glenelg, South Adelaide and the Eagles.

“It's just like an infectious disease – it sort of spreads and you get people not even trusting themselves let alone their team mates in passages of play.”

But Hill said the side needed to pick itself up quickly and finish the season off with a win before its bye in the last round.

He said a win against eighth placed Sturt at Adelaide Oval on Friday night was vital to the morale of the club over the summer.

“But whether we can manufacture it is another question,” he said.

“It'll be a tough summer no matter what now.”

Norwood had few winners on the ground in Saturday's match and looked more like the wooden spooner than its motivated opponent.

Scott Borlace racked up 33 possessions for Norwood and took 13 marks while Matthew Bartemucci was the Redlegs' only winning forward but returned a wayward 3.5 from 15 kicks.

Ruckman John Meesen worked hard, collecting 16 possessions and 19 hitouts.

Hill said he would use the Sturt game to try out a few of the young up and coming players at the club.

“But you've got to temper that with the fact that we've got to win so its a bit of a balancing act – a couple will get opportunities but at the same time there's not much point changing everything for the last game.”

SCORES: West Adelaide 6.2 12.7 17.8 23.12 (150) defeated Norwood 5.3 6.9 9.12 14.15 (99).

BEST: West – Hollands, Bonaddio, Slattery, O'Sullivan; Norwood – Borlace, Bartemucci, Meesen, Nitschke.

GOALS: West – Bonaddio 7, Hollands, O'Sullivan, Porplyzia, Bayliss, Vanderloo 2, Barnett, Dragicevic, Buckley, Donaldson, Slattery, Walsh; Norwood – Bartemucci 3, Hill, Pfeiffer, Gallagher 2, Carslake, Borlace, Culpitt, Meesen, Cockshell.