The Whyalla selectors have chosen a good and well balanced squad to compete in this week's Mortlock Shield at Port Lincoln on Saturday and Monday.
Unfortunately the squad will be missing a few players due to work commitments and at the time of going to press the selectors are undecided on whether they will be adding to the list.
The players left in the squad are: Phillip Hillman (Central), Luke Seymour, Chris Beaty, Alistair Thomas, Nathan Wohling and Josh Ackland (all North), Waylon Nielsen, Ryan Burgess, Damien Hanneman, Greg Fiebig, James Vanhoof and Justin Grund (all Roopena), Ray McIntosh, Matthew Perry, Ryan Baker, Reggie Reid and Gavin Jonker (if fit), Johnathon Kroll, Geoff Appleton, Lee Ringland, Anthony Malcolm, Andrew Hoffman (W/Bay) and Aaron Smith, Shannon Winders, Ben English, Simon Nowak, Scott Norman, Michael Kellett and Matthew Holmes (all Westies).
Due to Whyalla being an industrial city, we will never be able to pick our best team with many players working shift work and being unable to get time off work, but the selectors have come up with what I believe to be a good crop of young and experienced players that will represent our city with pride.
New combined coach David "Freddy" Freeman is quietly pleased with the squad and with his vast experience in football is looking forward to the challenge.
Although he knows very little about the quality of the opposition, he has brought a new system to the team and we will see if it works for them on the weekend.
The squad trained on Wednesday night and no doubt the selectors may make a few late changes especially if a few more players become unavailable.
Umpires coach's interesting fishing adventures
Everyone in Whyalla knows how much umpires coach Willy Sleep loves his fishing, but last week he took it to the extreme as he went out fishing with South Whyalla player Jimmy Martin.
When he jagged a big snapper he accidently also jagged the fish into Martin's leg causing him to go to hospital and miss Friday night's game against North Whyalla.
Willy's brother Grant Sleep, who coaches South was not amused as he already had about seven or eight players out through injury and the last thing he wanted was to have another player missing.
Meanwhile other brother Jock, who is football manager of Roopena, has banned all his club's players to go out fishing with his brother.
Local under 14 compete in Port Augusta
Whyalla won one from three games in the annual under 14 carnival played every year at Port Augusta with the opponents being Port Augusta, Northern Areas Association and Port Pirie.
In game one Whyalla met the NAFA side and went down 1.2 to 6.7, while in game two they put up a better performance losing by 9 points to Port Augusta with the scores being 5.3 to 6.6.
Whyalla performed much better in their last game easily defeating Port Pirie by 51 points, with the scores being 9.3 to 1.0.
Westies Max Manners kicked five goals in the three games, while Lourens Victor from South won the medal as best player for Whyalla.
Marron/Azzopardi Cup
Every year Central and West Whyalla play for the Peter Marron/ Mark Azzopardi Cup, which is in honour of two great players from both clubs.
Both players played over 300 games for their respective clubs, played in premierships, captained the clubs and represented Whyalla in combined games on numerous occasions.
While they would have both been disappointed at the result of the game, they would be very proud of having a contest named in their honour as both of them are real legends of Whyalla football.
In fact if the Whyalla Football League ever gets a hall of fame these two players would be among the first chosen to be made legends of Whyalla football.
Player milestone
Last week saw Jeff Ewings of Roopena play his 250th club game for his beloved Roos.
Jeff played all his junior football with Roopena and made his senior debut in 1994.
Spider's Selections
Last week Bernadette Abraham picked the three winners to gain one point on me as I selected South to win, but they were well beaten.
My guests are closing the gap and now only trail by one point with the scores being me 17 to the guests 16. Once again there is no local football on this weekend as we are travelling to Port Lincoln, but I will be back next week with another guest tipster.
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