West Whyalla reaffirmed itself as outright premiership favourite with a devastating display of football in Friday night's semi final.
In front of a huge crowd and in almost perfect conditions, it was North, as usual, who jumped out of the blocks to kick the first two goals of the game and then eventually finish the quarter with a handy 10 point lead.
West went into the game without their two Smiths, with Aaron the usual opponent for North's goal kicking machine Prokopec being replaced by dual Whyalla News Medallist, Anthony Manfield.
West also were able to use an extra defender to assist in stopping Prokopec and although he goaled early in the game, it was players such as Chad Clothier and Tim Brown who were causing the damage for North.
But in the case of many of West's games this year, the first quarter often turned out to be the best quarter for their opposition.
This was another example of that.
After quarter time it really became a one horse race.
West piled on 16 goals in the last three quarters to North's 6.
The half time score was West 7-7 to North 5-2.
North's brigade of high quality midfielders in Menzies, Medlin, Seymour, Trezise and Clothier all failed to have their normal impact even though Clothier displayed his usual ultra high skill level to kick four classy goals.
In their place, were a range of West midfielders who really stepped up when it mattered.
The architect of all this was veteran coach Russell Sawford, who not only marshalled his troops but picked up many kicks, marks, smothers and his usual handballs.
Whilst Prokopec didn't play poorly, the usual quality delivery by the Magpie midfield was not there and he was forced to go for high balls against the taller Manfield and often the other West Veteran, Scott Maitland, was able to come over the top to spoil.
Wayne Dare and Ledington played very good games for the Magpies but aside from the first quarter, there were simply too many examples across the ground where West players outnumbered their North opponents.
This then made it even harder for the North defenders to stop a rampaging West forward line lead by captain Shannon Winders, who capped an eventful game with seven goals.
Winders' overhead marking was sublime and was ably assisted by Henderson and Ware and the class of Everett, Leigh Symons and Marshall.
Alastair Thomas and Nathan Wohling also tried hard for the Magpies and Tim Brown played a very good game.
Whilst West would struggle to find a player who did not contribute, North will go into this week's preliminary final knowing that they have a range of players who did not perform to their best on Friday.
It needs to be remembered that even though West finished top, North beat West twice in their last two meetings with the last meeting seeing a fairly comfortable win to North.
Friday Night did not see the same North team as a few weeks back.
What the big and loud crowd did see was a very young West team who just ran and ran and pressured their opponents into making mistakes.
They have some tall players spread around the ground taking big marks and a group of small players who can outrun almost any opponent.
North will still fancy their chances in both this week's final and possibly the grand final.
They have way too many good players not to still think they can win North's first flag since 1979.
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