Round 3: Norwood v Sturt - Thursday 17 April @ Coopers Stadium

Norwood v Sturt

Thursday 17 April
Coopers Stadium

Reserves: 4:55pm
League: 7:40pm

Last Week:
Norwood 6.8.44 lost to Centrals 13.8.86 @ Playford Alive Oval
Sturt 13.19.97 d Adelaide 9.6.60 @ Envestra Park

Last Time They Met
Norwood 9.12.66 d Sturt 2.8.20 @ Envestra Park

Ladder Position:
Norwood: 7th 1-1 45.63%
Sturt: 1st 2-0 64.18%

Norwood are coming off a bit of a shock loss to Centrals while Sturt are coming off a big win over Adelaide. Will Norwood bounce back or will Sturt make it 3 from 3 in 2014.

Norwood , because the big Norwood crowd will get the legs home.

Norwood, the home ground advantage will be enough but only just enough, Norwood by 15 points

The legs will bring Sturts sparkling start to the season to a halt. 3 to 4 goals I reckon

Norwood by 5-6 goals.

Norwood by 33

Another tough one to pick. Err on the side of the home team - Norwood by 23 points

The woods losing last week will have them tearing Sturt a new one this week one would think, Norwood by six goals for mine.

Norwood to win this one at home.

Any one with updates for tonights game

Gameday forum.

Sturt won by 3 goals.

Oops,

That was egg on all our faces.

Odd that Norwood won just about every stat except inside 50s.

Beating the 9th and 10th side may not have been a true indication, but against the premier on their turf where the Blues have been shite, is a fair scalp.

One thing that has changed in 3 rounds is our kick to handball ratio has increased markedly from last season. That indicates a change in the gameplan and blokes prepared to lead to space. So perhaps that makes for more direct footy.

That'll do it.

Chambo Off To Work We Go wrote:Odd that Norwood won just about every stat except inside 50s.

Beating the 9th and 10th side may not have been a true indication, but against the premier on their turf where the Blues have been shite, is a fair scalp.

One thing that has changed in 3 rounds is our kick to handball ratio has increased markedly from last season. That indicates a change in the gameplan and blokes prepared to lead to space. So perhaps that makes for more direct footy.

That'll do it.

Can you come to Richmond and show Westies how that is done Chambo.   

Sturt's improvement is the ability to defend compared to recent past seasons
Tonight's game is the hardest I've seen a Sturt side chase and tackle for a few years

Scrappy wrote:Sturt's improvement is the ability to defend compared to recent past seasons
Tonight's game is the hardest I've seen a Sturt side chase and tackle for a few years

i sat next to Scrappy tonight & i saw the same thing, the silly thing about the match was Sturt were never really going to lose but Norwood were always a chance to sneak the win, the intensity, hard working & running both ways by Sturt seemed to be off putting to Norwood, one wonders had Newton kicked straight would it be a different story !!

if anyone told me at the start of the night that Sturt would win without Duldig kicking a goal i would have thought no hope, although Duldig did set up a goal with a smart short pass to the goal square from dep in the pocket, this in itself is a great sign for Sturt

I wasn't at the game. Night footy is out for me, for several reasons. But I just put these stats on doubleblue.org. They certainly indicate a change in Sturt's approach this year.

Handballs: St. 87, Nwd. 140. Long while since we've seen anything like that.   
Hit Outs: 22 to 42. Kouta beaten, but we still won the game.
Tackles: 37 to 22. Pressure, which may have contributed to Norwood's over use of handball.
Also I notice Krause didn't play.
A great team effort.

Scrappy wrote:Sturt's improvement is the ability to defend compared to recent past seasons
Tonight's game is the hardest I've seen a Sturt side chase and tackle for a few years

The most pleasing thing is the very marked increase in workrate compared to the last 3 seasons. I draw a comparison to the 2009 side that played in the GF. That wasn't the most skillful outfit going around but they were relentless in applying pressure to the opposition to force turnovers.

I see this in the current team. But so far the skill level has been fairly good. So these signs are encouraging.

Things in this comp from a performance point of view have been volatile for a while, given player turnover, but this season is without precedent. I think we are going to see a continuation of unusual or unexpected results occur before the season is done.

Hopefully the Blue boys can stay on the current side of that ledger.

Good luck to Sturt, you cant help but admire the way they are going about it at the moment! Sad thing is its looking more and more like they have plenty left in the tank also!