Round 8 – West Coast v Western Bulldogs: The Big R

 

Friday night’s game at Domain Stadium (nee Subiaco Oval) was one I’m sure Eagles’ fans would have circled at the start of the season with a big R – re-live, revenge, redemption, relief. That would have been perfectly understandable for we dished up the surprise of the year after being humbled by Freo the week before in the final game of the home and away season. It is history now that after that amazing win we went on to wipe out 62 years of disappointment.

 

I wasn’t confident of our chances, given the Big R factor and with Stringer, Dunkley and Murphy out. However, Redpath coming in was interesting and when he scored the first goal I was just as excited for him as were his 17 teammates on the field. He hadn’t played for 10 months after a knee reconstruction (his third). He finished with 3 goals for the game. Unfortunately, our good start quickly changed to the normal pattern-plenty of inside 50’s for no goals and the odd mistake letting the opposition out the back for easy goals to Sheed, Darling, Kennedy and Duggan.

 

We played catch-up for the rest of the game. Down by 16 points at quarter time, we were 17 points down at half time and still 17 points down at ¾ time. It was  a cracking, high –pressure game with some wonderful individual efforts at times – a brilliant goal by Adams, a goal that should have been by Dale, a couple by Lucas Webb in his first game for the season and Mitchell and Kennedy were on fire. We were leading the tackles 42 to 29 and inside 50’s but they meant nothing except to the commentators.

 

We nearly stole it thanks to shocking kicking by Kennedy who kicked 4 straight points in a row (he should have put us away), a brilliant last quarter by Caleb Daniel who had quietened Mitchell’s influence and struck out defiantly on his own and goals to McLean and Wood. However, Yeo and Hurn were brilliant stumbling blocks in defence.  As it turned out, the Eagles too kicked very inaccurately in the end – 9.15 to 8.13.

 

Despite the inaccurate kicking, it was an exciting game to watch. The Eagles have temporarily consigned the R back to the alphabet. I expect both teams to be T thereabouts) again come finals time. The Eagles need to get the ball in their court more often, the Dogs have the reverse problem- they get it in but don’t use the ball well enough in the front half. Both teams don’t have a good away record at the moment but over the course of the season, I’m sure both teams will correct all of those faults.

 

 

West Coast Eagles           4.2         8.6         9.10       9.15.69

Western Bulldogs             1.4         5.7         6.11       8.13.61

 

Goals:

West Coast Eagles: Kennedy 3, Sheed 2, Darling 2, Gaff, Duggan

Western Bulldogs: Redpath 3, Webb 2, Adams, McLean, Wood

 

Best:

 

West Coast Eagles: Mitchell, Sheed, Gaff, Yeo, Hurn, Kennedy

Western Bulldogs: Daniel, Macrae, Bontempelli, Mclean, Redpath

 

Our votes: Yeo, Daniel, Gaff

Umpires: Stevic, Dalgleish, Findlay

 

Attendance at Subiaco Oval: 38,934