North Whyalla's title defence is well and truly back on track after their emphatic 32 point win over second-placed Roopena on Saturday.
The Magpies were brilliant in the opening term playing their best football for the season to set the game up.
Roopena started the game slowly and although the scoreboard said different, they did play their best football after quarter time.
It was an ideal day for football with no breeze to worry about.
The game started with North kicking to the scoreboard end.
The Magpies were very quick out of the blocks with goals to Luke Seymour and Nick Prokopec and even at this early stage of the game warning bells were ringing for the Roos.
Matt Oliver got one back, then goals to Chad Clothier, Russell Tucker and Prokopec (two) saw the Magpies race away to very handy lead.
Matt Manfield pulled one back for the Roos right on the siren.
Roopena came out in the second quarter with early goals to Oliver, Greg Fiebig and Damien Hanneman and suddenly they were back to within a goal.
However, the last part of the quarter belonged to the Magpies as once again they took control to kick the last three to lead by 26 points at the long break.
It had been a fantastic game of football so far with all the skills of the game on show, but the underlying question was if the Maggies could keep it up.
The third quarter was a real arm wrestle with both teams applying much pressure, not letting anyone get easy possessions until about the 13-minute mark when Prokopec got the first goal of the quarter.
The rest of the quarter was fairly even with North maintaining their lead at three quarter time of 25 points and everything pointing to a very interesting last quarter.
The large crowd was not disappointed as Ryan Burgess kicked two early goals for the Roos bringing them back in the game.
But that was the end of the revival as the Maggies were not going to let this one get away.
They eventually ran out winners by 32 points, with the final scores being 16.10 to 11.8.
There were so many good players from both teams, but I thought that North's Wayne Dare was best on ground.
Mainly because he kept the Roos danger man Manfield quiet, with Manfield having very little influence on the game at all.
Chad Menzies was back to his creative best, Russell Tucker continues to improve, Luke Seymour had another good game, with Prokopec (six goals), Corey Preiss and Clothier being best of the others.
Roopena was well served by Greg Fiebig who was always at the fall of the ball, Justin Grund won most of the ruck contests, Jeff Ewings was solid in defence.
Others playing well were Peter Usher, Jay Peter and Chris Webster.
North Whyalla have really set the race for the flag alight and the other teams will now sit up and take notice.
Roopena will sit back and wonder what they will have to do different as they have been beaten by both the main challengers over the past three weeks.
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