The Wrap Up: Sturt v Port @ Envestra Park

Sturt 4.3 7.4 11.6 13.9.87
Port 0.1 6.2 8.2 10.5.65

Sturt cause a bit of a shock with a 22 point win over Port, giving Sturt some breathing space from last space and sending Port a tad further from the top 5.

The difference between Sturt's best and worst must frustrate their supporters.

Bad loss for Port.

Port save their best for North and worst for Sturt.

In both matches against Sturt this year Port has failed to lead at any point of the game.

redandblack wrote:The difference between Sturt's best and worst must frustrate their supporters.

Bad loss for Port.

Yes indeed.
Even today, we go into the forward 50 often enough, just without purpose.
Too many bombs to contested situations. Far too few forwards prepared to lead hard to space.
I'll be interested to see how many more marks Port had today.

The was hard enough endeavour at the loose ball and I think that set up us going forward.
Sturt's best for me were, Coad (looked like his old self), Tambling (boy he hits the tackles hard), Martin, Kane and Crane.

i only saw the second half as was at a U/14 match, that was an entertaining game as was the second half at Unley this afternoon, Sturt seemed to have more players willing to work back than Port did & i feel that was probably the biggest difference of the half, there were some great marks & Martin probably took the best one on the wing grandstand side, both teams tried hard but Sturt had more poise & skills than their counterparts

Was impressed with Sturt's younger brigade today, especially James Battersby, while veteran Luke Crane was back to his best with 4 goals...

With the Double Blues hosting Norwood next week, Nathan Bassett was an interested on-looker in the crowd. He would have been impressed...

What do the stats tell us?

We did infact take 25 more marks than our average, but still 1 behind Port. The marks moving into the 50 arc are still way too few. We had 20 more inside 50s than Port, so should have converted these opportunities for a 30 - 40 point win.

Guys just don't lead up to space enough and buggered if I know why Seamus can't fix this. We still have a competition low of -20 average mark difference to the opposition.

We had 20 more tackles than Port, so our intensity at them carrying the ball was good.

Our disposals were up by 40 on our season average. That is a significantly higher work rate. We had 30 more than Port.

Our rucks smashed their rucks by 34 hit-outs, but we still didn't win the clearances.

All season we are top of the hit outs and second bottom for clearances.
And yet we have had Aidan Riley for most of that and he has the second highest number of average clearances in the league. Perhaps our other midfielders need to sharpen up a bit?

Interesting stats analysis, Chambo. I agree with your conclusions.

The game was played on Sturts terms pretty much all day. The scoreboard flattered Port IMO. Really missed Meiklejohn and just poor timing that Cockshell was away at the time, although his form wouldn't have warranted a promotion, would simply have been the need for a ruckman.

Disappointing considering the position we are in on the ladder. We still have a shot at playing finals, but not if we lose to the teams below us.

Watching Johncock at this level is interesting.
He didn't get a lot of opportunities, but made the most of what he had.

A very clever player that you'd think you could match up on.
But he is so strong overhead, still quite quick. Hinge battled hard on him and wasn't too bad, but if the ball was coming in better and more often, it could have been a much different story.

Booney, what happened as the last quarter started? Johncock was on and then sprinted off before the siren sounded to start the 4th quarter and I only counted 5 in the forward line. He came on a few minutes later.

Not sure about the last quarter Chambo.

Johncock is certainly a handful at this level, his form will be a major part of us making finals or not. If he continues to get decent supply he will kick his 4-5 goals, we just need to get it too him with quality ball movement.

perhaps nature was calling with Johncock

Maybe, but he had 10 minutes to do that and he just stood on the sideline. He may have had a sneaky one, but it looked like they had 19 on the ground, but I couldn't count them fast enough before the game got underway.