Tracking your Team - Sturt

Tough times at Unley, but help arriving on the financial front and they need the true blues to stand firm.

Games at Norwood are a very good initiative from the club and will no doubt be well supported, I suspect Fri night at the Parade will be a good success for them and every bit helps towards it.

Fairly obvious Sturt taking Graham.

I guess they need insurance for Kurtze and the Crows probably won't have Jenkins and Graham in the same team too often.

Sturt now have 10 Crows players on the list plus 3 from Port. I honestly haven't really decided how I feel about that. It had both good and not so good sides to it in 2012.

countrycousin wrote:Sturt now have 10 Crows players on the list plus 3 from Port. I honestly haven't really decided how I feel about that. It had both good and not so good sides to it in 2012.

Thats a lot of players you would have taken from you in one hit IF both AFL clubs have reserves teams in 2014.

Absolutely ridiculous that sturt get to move too coopers. I heard a rumour as well that sturt could be moving to hahndorff in couple of years

Norwood fanatic wrote:Absolutely ridiculous that sturt get to move too coopers. I heard a rumour as well that sturt could be moving to hahndorff in couple of years

why is it 'Absolutely ridiculous' ? numerous teams in Melbourne have & still do share ovals, as for your rumour well i've heard about 10 or 12 possible locations so even Mars could get a gig, however i thought Wayville would be a good fit for Sturt, already there is car parking, transport & lights for night matches

testy wrote:

countrycousin wrote:Sturt now have 10 Crows players on the list plus 3 from Port. I honestly haven't really decided how I feel about that. It had both good and not so good sides to it in 2012.

Thats a lot of players you would have taken from you in one hit IF both AFL clubs have reserves teams in 2014.

Always assuming we don't end up being the SANFL equivalent of Peel or East Perth, of course.

Norwood fanatic wrote:Absolutely ridiculous that sturt get to move too coopers. I heard a rumour as well that sturt could be moving to hahndorff in couple of years

As to the first comment, it is only a few games because we have no possibility for part of the action on Friday Night footy at present.

As the second, I don't think so.

Norwood fanatic wrote:Absolutely ridiculous that sturt get to move too coopers. I heard a rumour as well that sturt could be moving to hahndorff in couple of years

Obviously your club doesn't have much issue with it, otherwise it wouldn't be happening. I would assume they are getting some money from it. Maybe they need it??

It seems we will get to keep the River Murray zone, but possibly lose areas of Belair and surrounding.

For three years Sturt have been nurturing a crop of Under 15's that are excited to be Sturt players. Now overnight the club is forced to tell ten of them, sorry you're now South Adelaide players, a club they've had absolutely no connection with whatsoever.

In making these zone adjustments, no thought goes into how it affects actual people, families and community relationships that have been developed.

It is just not right.

The problem with that, Chambo, is that the zones would never be changed.

It would become totally lopsided.

redandblack wrote:
It would become totally lopsided.

Speaking of which, Sturt have lost over 600 eligible youth, while South have gained 800. As a result Sturt now have approx. 11,000 and South 12,000. I sense that there are other agendas at work in this. Crows anyone?

Hi Chambo and CC, I am not sure that those players lost from Sturt are headed to South Adelaide. If its right that Sturt have lost chunks of Belair in the review then those players would be going to West Adelaide or Glenelg as Souths boundary does not align with Belair or anywhere near that area of the foothills, to my knowledge, Reynella and Aberfoyle Park are both Glenelg and West Adelaide territory, our zone is halfway through Morphett Vale then back through towards Moana.

redandblack wrote:The problem with that, Chambo, is that the zones would never be changed.

It would become totally lopsided.

The trouble is these reviews are just band aid upon band aid.
Not a wholistic approach at all.

You need a balance between traditional community, relationships with the zone that have been long established and equity to those clubs whose zone talent pool is thin.

I don't have a problem with zone change, but do it properly with a well considered ethos.

Agreed, but the boundary change process involves a lot of work and goes over several stages, taking into account population, participation rates and club wishes.

Given that most of the growth is in developing areas, it's extremely difficult to maintain a balance and keep all clubs happy.

If they were to start again with a fresh look, all clubs would be unhappy, so there's no perfect solution.

No not perfect but change you can plan for is better than change you have to react to.

good to hear some of the kids tearing things up at unley, the blues will be all right this year. wont win the flag but will be travellin okay at the end.

Is it fair to say that AFL availability might mean the difference between a very strong Sturt team and a very ordinary one?

It's certainly fair to say it of Essendon.

redandblack wrote:Is it fair to say that AFL availability might mean the difference between a very strong Sturt team and a very ordinary one?

I'll concede that it looks that way on the face of it, but like several other clubs, we're looking to some very promising young players to step up. Some like Fraser Evans, John Greenslade, Jack Stephens, Levi Krauss, Ben Hansen, Matt Crocker, played some league footy in 2012 and looked OK. There are also some very likely lads from last year's U18s, but they will need a while before we can expect too much from them. I noticed that Bassett is talking up his depth of juniors, but both Sturt and WWT Eagles U18s beat Norwood in the finals. The Eagles of course went on to beat Sturt in the Grand Final, so both clubs there would be happy with their prospects.
The AFL players will be important, of course, but over reliance on them, particularly in key positions, was one of our weaknesses last year and while we haven't recruited any big name players, we've picked up several guys like Stopp, Smith and Pearce with specific gaps in our lineup in mind. Time will tell whether they're good enough of course. My honest assessment of our prospects would be that we're very much work in progress. But if we didn't believe we can be competitive and move up the ladder to a more respectable level, we'd be wasting our time being in it at all. And we certainly not into that.

Flag No.9 wrote:It's certainly fair to say it of Essendon.

Can't disagree with that.

Thanks for such a helpful reply, CC.

My take on our situation these last 2 years and particularly last season was that the younger group coming through can be inconsistent (although that was true of some older players too). With a couple of seasons under their belt you would hope they gain greater discipline and concentration to be consistent.

I saw our main issues last season as being two-fold.

A lack of workrate in transitioning to defence. Largely a scourge of the midfield, but others too who simply watched the ball as they jogged back. There was little intensity to keep pressure on the opposition as they moved into attack.

Secondly our forwards also lacked workrate to lead to space with any great intensity. Too easy for opposition defenders to read that and rebound. I saw in one game a defender start behind our forward and actually out-sprint him to the ball because he wanted it more.

Through experience that mental concentration and discipline should come.

Not sure that having 7 AFL players at various times is all that helpful and seemed quite unsettling.
Riley was very good for us until he forced his way into the Crows. Was a very hard nut at the ball.
Tambling having played nearly all of the season, was good too.
Jenkins was great when we had him. Probably see less of him as I think he is the logical replacement for Tippett with the Crows.
Martin was pretty good too, although he was in and out of the side a bit.

I think we need to be less reliant on these guys and those CC mentioned definitely need to take the next step.

Worrying signs early for the Double Blues, looks like Michael Coad may have dislocated his shoulder in the first 10 minutes of the trial against Norwood tonight. It doesn't look good, but let's hope it is not worse case sceanrio...