Weeroona Bay defeated North Whyalla by 20 points in a very good game of football at Bennett Oval on Sunday.
These two teams are traditional rivals and they play a similar style of football with plenty of run and hard, tough passages of play with no backwards steps taken.
Since Weeroona Bay entered the league in 1970, they have now met on 129 occasions with North leading by 68 games to 61 and in the period from 2002, they have now met 25 times, with the Bays having a 14-11 advantage.
The Bays narrowly avoided 'winning' the wooden spoon last year, when they had an upset win over West Whyalla in the last minor round game, with North thus finishing in last place on the ladder.
But returning to 2008, both teams now have new non-playing coaches with David Freeman calling the shots for North and Harry Marks in charge at Tiger land.
The Bays kicked to the scoreboard end in the opening stanza, which was favoured by a three goal breeze and they had 5-4 on the board at the first change.
However North kicked two goals into the breeze to only trail by 21 points.
The game was won in the second term when the Bays kicked 4-1 into the breeze, with North only managing 3-1 with it.
This gave the young Weeroona Bay team, who had 11 under 21s in their line-up, a 27 point advantage at the long break.
North lifted their game in the second half.
They restricted the Bays to 2-2 in the third quarter and kicked a valuable goal into the breeze to trail by 35 points at lemon time.
They kicked a further 4-3 in the last quarter, but it was not enough to bridge the gap, because the Bays scored two goals into the breeze to run out winners by 20 points.
North won the second half by scoring 5-3 to 4-2 and matched the Bays by scoring seven goals with the breeze.
However, the Bays won the game by kicking six goals into the breeze, while North could only manage three.
Josh Parker was best for the winners and also best on ground.
When he is 'firing on all six', there is no better player in the city.
He was prominent all day with good overhead marking and long raking kicks at centre-half-forward and played most of the last quarter as a loose man in defence when North looked very dangerous.
Richard Green led the team in the absence of skipper Matt Ellis, and played a very disciplined and mature game in the ruck and around the ground, where he took several telling marks.
Joel Bristow was prominent all day in his first senior game, while Anthony How, Dale Gericke and Geoff Appleton also played well.
Nathan Preiss was best for North.
He turned in a fine four quarter performance and looks set for a very good year.
Josh Ackland was a dangerous forward and finished off a good game with two valuable goals, while Chris Beaty, Luke Seymour,Chad Clothier and Chad Menzies were other good players.
David Freeman thought his players were a little hesitant in the first half, but much better after the long break.
He was very happy with the form of Nathan Preiss, Josh Ackland and Chris Beaty and gave credit to the young Weeroona Bay team.
Harry Marks was elated with the good first up win.
He was very pleased with Josh Parker and Richard Green and also his young guns led by Anthony How and Joel Bristow.
The road ahead will see Weeroona Bay play Central Whyalla at the Bennett Oval on Saturday, while North Whyalla will play West Whyalla at Memorial Oval on the same day.
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