Round 14: Centrals v West - Saturday 18 July @ Playford Alive Oval

Centrals got the job done over Adelaide, while West ran away from Glenelg. Both teams have been in pretty good form of late, who will continue their good form this week?

looking forward to watching this game, while Central have a rough hope of climbing into the top 5, i think West have too much to play for with a top 3 spot up for grabs, West by 9 points

Wins at Elizabeth are rare for us but if we are going to have an impact at finals time we would win this one.

Selection will be interesting for us with Willits, Tuck and possibly Helbig available this week. Will be some unlucky players missing out this week.

Bloods by a couple of goals but not confident.

Some useful ins for Westies. Centrals have looked good for the last month but I think West will be too strong.
They have both the speed and the height at both ends of the ground to worry Centrals and are showing the ability to run out games strongly. I think they will win by 20 points.

West by 74 and Lee to have the bet with Phil all wrapped up

Tipping against the Dogs at the Ponderosa is often a big call, but I think Westies can get the job done, West by 27pts.

To be honest, the final scoreline flattered Centrals. Each quarter had a common trend of West dominating and punishing Centrals errors up until time on, and then Centrals would come back and get the margin back to around the 1 goal mark. It was, however, pleasing to see Centrals never give up and constantly fought back to get back to within a kick, however, Westies did what was needed to ensure they came away with the win.

Brucetiki wrote:To be honest, the final scoreline flattered Centrals.  Each quarter had a common trend of West dominating and punishing Centrals errors up until time on, and then Centrals would come back and get the margin back to around the 1 goal mark.  It was, however, pleasing to see Centrals never give up and constantly fought back to get back to within a kick, however, Westies did what was needed to ensure they came away with the win.

could not have said it any better, spot on

This was a pretty good game of footy between two hard-at-it, desperate teams.

You have to give a fair bit of credit to both coaches. Roy Laird for building a more than competitive team and being right in the game despite losing two key players before the game.

The tactical battle was also interesting, with changes to the make up of each side during the game to counter the opposition or to throw something different into the mix.

The pattern was much the same each quarter - West would kick away, look like extending the lead, only for Central to kick a couple of quick goals to claw back. You always had the feeling that West were more likely to win, but there was only 5 points in it with 5 minutes to go.

Almost as expected, however, West's class players stood up when neede. Chris Schmidt worked a nice clearance from the middle, Travis Tuck won a hard ball and kicked around his body to an unattended Jason Porplyzia, who milked the clock for what seemed a very long time before calmly slotting the relatively easy shot.

For Central, Chris Jansen, probably the surprise recruit of the year, was prolific in a team who relied on switching play and finding loose runners to score their goals.

Kaine Syevens, probably one of the most improved players in the SANFL, was again best for West, along with Schmidt, Porplyzia and the consistently excellent Jono Beech.

West had 4 kids in their team and everyone could see why Aaron Francis (No 45) is likely to be in the first 3 drafted, with strong marks in bot defence and attack, where he kicked two goals.

Make no mistake, Central gave everything and were only let down by some handling errors. West, on the other hand, weren't allowed to play their best footy, but drew rare praise from Roy Laird.

You left Elizabeth thinking West are a pretty good side and Central are very much on the recovery tail.