Development League, Colts and Women's Match Reviews

Colts

The Colts started the day needing a victory against the second placed Tigers to keep in touch with the top five.  The boys started the game in excellent fashion and were hard at the contest, tackling strongly and putting plenty of pressure on their opponents.  Kicking with the aid of the breeze in the first quarter their direct football, pouncing on the Claremont turnovers enabled our boys to take a handy 4.4 to no score going in to the first break.

From there the game became a tight, willing contest and with our boys prepared to fight to the end they continued to apply pressure throughout the rest of the contest.  Heading in to the last quarter, after holding the Tigers scoreless again on the third, the Sharks held a very handy 32 point lead, but when Claremont kicked the first two goals early in the last, with the stiffening breeze, it looked as though the game was going to go right to the wire.  However our boys steadied and showed great spirit, as they had all day, to kick a couple of goals in to the wind, to eventually run out 24 point winners. 

In a very low possession match, as was expected given the conditions, Corey Holmes continues to find the ball collecting 24 disposals, while Ben Harding collected 20 and Matthew Burton 16 to go with his goal and 5 inside 50’s.  Drew Blurton stared the game kicking two early goals and almost had another two by the end of that quarter and looked lively all day.  Young ruck Jack McGrath played arguably his best game amassing 32 hitouts, to go with 13 disposals and 6 clearances.  Down back Senna Grljusich continues to be resolute.

The boys will no doubt hope to carry that form in to next week’s game against Peel.

East Fremantle                8.9 = 57              def.                     Claremont          5.3 = 33

Development League

The news however for the Development League was not as good with the boys being shown up for intensity by a hungry Tigers outfit.  Kicking in to the breeze the Sharks were unable to hit the scoreboard, however with Claremont not taking full advantage of that use of the breeze, in kicking 3.3, the game was certainly there for the taking.

The second quarter though saw the Tigers continue to dominate general play and as a result were able to kick 4 goals in to the breeze, whilst the Sharks could only manage the solitary goal with it, leaving the boys with a huge challenge in the second half trailing by 39 points at the main break.

With Claremont kicking with the breeze again in the third, the task was simple for our boys in restricting the Tigers scoring with the breeze and to the Sharks credit they were able to hold their opponents to three goals again, while scoring one themselves, however it would take an amazing effort to come from 49 points down at the final break.

East Fremantle continued to fight the game out to the end, kicking 4.4 to Claremont’s 2.1, but clearly that wasn’t enough and the boys eventually fell short by 34 points.

Better players for the Sharks included Miles Franklin, who gathered 20 disposals and was composed in defence.  Tom Hooker also playing out of defence collected 23 to go with 5 tackles.  Louis Cronan also gathered 23 from a wing and Jesse Adamini overcame a quiet first half to eventually be the highest possession getter for the Sharks with 27.  Up forward Adrian Ricciardello looked dangerous early but couldn’t get a score on the board, while Jacob Green was the only multiple goal scorer with 2.3 for the day.

East Fremantle                6.8 = 44              def by                 Claremont          12.6 = 78

Women's

East Fremantle travelled to Anning Park on Friday night to take on the Bulldogs in a Derby Match under lights. 

The Sharks controlled the match from the beginning, with the midfield dominating the clearances and a smart forward line structure keeping the forward 50m relatively open. Stefanie Italiano kicked the first goal of the match 2 minutes into the game, which was soon followed by the first of 3 goals to Samara David who was busy in the forward line all evening and took some great contested marks. Emma Swanson goalled twice from the midfield to take the Sharks to a 26-0 lead, but the players lost concentration in the dying minutes of the quarter to allow the Bulldogs a running goal to get onto the scoreboard. 

After the break, Jess Wuetschner kicked the first two of her three goals for the match early in the second quarter, before Souths returned with one of their own to keep their chances alive. A crowd-pleasing soccered goal from Sharks defender Gemma Orange was followed by the Bulldogs third goal, giving East Fremantle a 29 point lead at half-time. 

The second half continued much as the first, however the Sharks held the Bulldogs to just the one goal, which came late in the 3rd quarter. 

GOALS: J. Wuetschner 3, S. David 3, E. Swanson 2, B. Smith, G. Orange, K. Soley, S. Italiano

BEST: J Kinsman, S David, S Italiano