Weeroona Bay scored an exciting 17-point victory over North Whyalla in a thriller at Bennett Oval in their round four clash last Saturday.
The scores were close all game with neither side being able to dominate and while the Magpies lost the game, they played exciting fast, run on football that showed they will still be a force to contend with for the rest of the season.
The Bays were at their brilliant best with their fast running, skilful young brigade that not only showed the football public that they are capable of playing great football at times, they showed that they can soak up the pressure as well.
The match started with North kicking to the scoreboard end, favoured by a slight 2-3 goal breeze and immediately went into attack from the bounce.
Chad Clothier kicked the first goal of the game, but they wasted opportunities with inaccurate kicking and should have been further in front after about eight minutes of play.
Once the Bays settled, they played some great football with some brilliant individual efforts by the younger players and held a slender 2-point lead at the first break, the scores being 4.0 to 3.4.
The second quarter produced some brilliant football both as a team and some individual brilliance once again, with the Bays soaking up the pressure, then producing some great football as they slowly worked their way into a handy 15-point lead at the long break.
The Maggies got back into the game in the third quarter with some great teamwork and after the 10-minute mark were only a few points behind.
But this only seemed to spur the young Bays on, kicking the last three goals to lead by 21 points at the last change.
The last quarter was just as exciting as the first three with both teams going goal for goal, with players giving their all.
The Bays produced the goods again, getting out to a handy unassailable 33-point lead with about five minutes left to play.
But the Maggies did not give up as they came home with a flurry kicking the last three goals of the game, eventually going down by 17 points in what can only described as a great game of football.
It was very hard to name best players as there were so many good individual efforts from plenty of players from both teams.
I eventually settled on Josh Parker, who not only dominated his position in defence, but used his long raking kicks into attack causing plenty of headaches to the Magpies defence.
Others to do well were Anthony Malcolm, James Gruitt, Geoff Appleton, Gary Hoffmann, Dale Gericke and Lee Ringland.
North had plenty of good players as well being best served by Josh Trezise, Josh Ackland, Alistair Thomas, Russell Tucker, Luke Hasting and Wayne Dare.
In fact I could easily have chosen best player from about 15 or 16 players, such was the evenness of the contest.
While the Bays won the game making the footy public sit up and take notice of them, the Magpies are not as settled as last season with player unavailability and other reasons, but are slowly working their way back to form and will cause a few upsets in the coming weeks.
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