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West crush Roosters

19 Apr, 2009 11:30 PM
West Whyalla effortlessly defeated a disappointing Central Whyalla by a whopping 213 points in excellent conditions at Bennett Oval on Saturday.

The match was played in front of a small crowd that progressively got smaller and smaller as the disaster unfolded, the game was effectively over by quarter time.

Even though West kicked 11 goals in the first quarter, it was also Central's best quarter of the game when they kicked two of their three goals.

It was obvious from very early on that the Central backline would not be able to cope with the marking power of Brad Henderson and Shannon Winders.

Even when those two were covered, players like Brad Smith, Nathan Grzona and the Everett brothers were popping up with dashing runs and snaps at goal.

Centrals did have their moments in the first quarter with Reggie Betts and Shannon Smith showing loads of speed and providing some headaches for the West players.

Greg Vlachoulis' long goal shortly before quarter time showed a glimpse of his enormous potential.

Half way through the second quarter West lead by 100 points and by the end of the quarter had added another 10 goals to their 11 from the first quarter, with Centrals not having a single shot on goal at all for the quarter.

Henderson, Smith and Winders continued to kick goals for the Dragons and Simon Nowak was controlling everything across the centre and half back. Former Rooster, Matt Holmes was highly effective in the midfield and Brannan Everett was playing an excellent game.

Centrals' veterans Hillman, Huish and especially Mark Luke were trying hard, but it was just too difficult for them to get their hands on the ball often enough to make an impact.

By half time, West led by 121 points.

After half time, West rotated positions with almost every player spending some time on the bench.

Centrals continued to try hard and never gave up, but very few Central players could say they won their position for the day.

They kicked their third and final goal for the game during the third term, but it was purely one way traffic from start to finish for the Dragons.

The final quarter again saw the ball barely make it past the Central half forward line with West kicking a further nine goals for the game.

In the end 51 scoring shots to 3 summed up the gap in the quality.

The Roosters and their coach, Darryl Byles, can take some positives from this game though.

Their very young squad battled hard all day without ever giving up or playing undisciplined football and their young players showed that providing this team can stick together for a few years and hold on to their experienced players, that Centrals will be a force again in Whyalla Football.

Young guns such as Aaron Byles, Dylan Leebody, Daniel Marshall, Haydn Ward and George Msapenda all played serviceable games.

Betts and Smith will continue to cause problems for opposition teams with their blistering pace and Centrals do have some experienced players currently in the seconds or out injured, that may be available for senior selection very soon.

West, however, would have found it hard to single out better players as all players were simply way too good.

Clearly Henderson, Winders, Smith and the Everetts with their bags of goals all made key contributions.

Holmes and Nowak were outstanding, along with the Symons' brothers, but teams don't win by 213 points without all players contributing.

Whyalla's footballing youth was on display with both teams fielding 13 players under the age of 21, with many of that group still being eligible for under 17s.

West have made a perfect start to the season with a 213-point win whilst beating the premiers in round one.

Centrals, however, still have a lot of work to do.

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