News

Whyalla reaches finals of Kinlough Cup

SPIDER SAUNDERS

08 Jul, 2009 11:30 PM

Whyalla in final of Kinlough Cup

Whyalla won their way into the final of the Kinlough Cup for under 17s at Cowell on Saturday, which is a good result and a credit to all the young lads and everyone else involved in the running of junior football in the town.

We have not had much success in all combined football this season whether it be the seniors or juniors and to see the young lads reach the final only to go down to the very strong Port Lincoln Districts team it is a feather in the cap of some very hard working officials and players.

In the first game Whyalla defeated Lincoln City by 26 points with Scott Clarke, Fraser Marshall, Alex Manners and Chad McLean being among the best.

Whyalla really had a good game in their next, defeating Far West by 85 points with Shaun Taylor getting among the goals with six, while Brannan Everett kicked three.

The stage was set for a great showdown in the final against Lincoln Districts, but this was not to be as the districts easily out classed Whyalla by 44 points with the scores being 9.11 to 2.9.

South's Scott Clarke won the award for Whyalla's best player of the carnival, with Cameron Edey, Josh Ackland, Scott Clarke Brannan Everett being selected in the team of the carnival and EP's under 17 squad, while Shaun Taylor is an emergency.

Once again well done to all the people concerned in the Whyalla side you did your very best and who knows with all the plans in place by the league towards junior development we may even go one better next year.

Northern Zone finish fourth

Also on the weekend we saw the SA country championships played in Port Pirie with the Northern Zone having one of their best finishes to the carnival, finishing fourth overall.

On the Saturday they had mixed fortunes winning one game and losing the other to play off for third and fourth place.

Unfortunately they were well beaten by South East, with Southern Districts being the eventual winner, which to the purist appears to be a mockery of the country championships as about half of their teams that play in their competition actually are located in the suburbs of Adelaide meaning they should be classed as metropolitan teams.

There were four Whyalla reps selected in the Northern Zone team and they were Greg Fiebig (Roopena), Kane Grund (Roopena) and Westies pair Ben English and Leigh Symons.

It seems that the Northern Zone are finally getting their act together, as in past years they have had a lot of trouble selecting their best players and it just goes to show that what we can do here in the north if we are allowed to select our best players.

As with the Kinlough squad I congratulate all the players selected to represent your zone, you have done us all proud.

Players names and numbers

One of the biggest talking points over the past number of years in Whyalla football has been the lack of a program with players names and numbers in it.

Well, that seems to be a thing of the past as last round the league trialled a sheet at every game with the players names and numbers on them.

While it is not a proper budget it is a step in the right direction as many people have complained to me over the past years that they have no idea of who some of the players are, especially in the reserves and junior grades.

I had a fair bit to do with the setting up of it and believe me it is not easy as some of the clubs make so many changes every week and although it will never be 100 per cent accurate, it is the best we can do and if there are too many faults please don't go crook at the league officials as they are only putting in what the clubs give them and if the clubs make many changes on the day there is nothing the league can do about it.

Hopefully it is a guide to help the football public.

They are free of charge and can be obtained from the canteen at all grounds and are up dated every round.

Player milestones

This week sees two players with similar backgrounds achieve milestones for their respective clubs.

North's Luke Seymour and Weerona Bay's Andrew Hoffman both playing their one-hundredth league game, with both of them graduating through their clubs juniors and making their league debuts in 2003.

They have both played combined football over the past couple of years and congratulations to both of you for reaching the milestone.

Spider's selections

This week my guest tipster is Dean May from Continental Corner in Westlands who has selected South, West and North.

The guests will not be able to gain any on me this round as I am also selecting South, West & North, but certainly not with the same confidence as Deano is.