Masters 2024 Round 3
Riverland V Blackwood.
Sunday the 28th of April seen the Riverland Superdogs host the Blackwood masters. As part of the 40-year anniversary the Superdogs held a sponsor and ladies’ day which drew a great crowd out for the day with past players present as well.
Riverland had great numbers for the game with the ability to lend a couple of players to Blackwood allowing full sides to be filled on the ground.
This allowed to Riverland full time full back to get a run-in blackwood’s forward line and he quickly had the first goal on the board for Blackwood. He quickly swapped back to Riverland colours at quarter time due to the target he had put on himself.
The first quarter was proving to be a contest from the middle with both teams having very strong onballers, with the winners of the clearances getting great scoring opportunities. This would the theme for the day.
Riverland started with big Ben Gogoll in ruck surrounded with Dale Lellmann, Kym Polst and Jeremy Drewett.
While coming in for his first game of the year Dave Grenfell was an imposing presence across half back.
The dog’s backline was under a lot of pressure early on. Unfortunately when going forward the dogs could not capitalise on a couple of great chances, leaving them going into quarter time with just the two points.
In the second quarter the dogs got on top of the clearances getting the ball forward early and finding ways to keep pressure on the ball coming out.
Brad Gale came playinghis first game in the red and black stripes was giving a great option across half forward while also finding leading targets in Shane Healy and Rob Johnstone up forward who lead hard all day.
Greg Schloithe had a change up into the ruck which gave a bit more mobility to the Dogs around the ground while Ian Forsyth keeps finding the right spots to lead to.
Darren Kennedy was starting to get on top across half back and when not winning the contest was getting pressure onto the blackwood ball carriers giving the last line defence a chance to contest and rebound out defence.
Mark Wenman was running himself into the ground to provide and option coming out of defence with great follow-up running to link up and work the ball into the forward half.
The dogs had their best quarter of the day kicking 3 goals and outscoring their opposition for the quarter.
The third stanza Blackwood came out with increased effort and were running well over the ground and utilising their height advantage across the ground with strong contested marking.
Both teams gave strong effort with the likes of Chris and Alex Garoufalis taking on much taller opposition but keep repelling the forward entries from Blackwood. Stan Lowcock after a very (self-proclaimed) intense preseason was showing all the endeavour we have come to expect from him in the back pocket. Blackwood though come out on top in the third quarter.
The last quarter the Superdogs looked tired but managed to stick to task and give some competitive effort. Darren Kennedy got moved into the ruck while Greg McDonnell and Paul Courtney never gave up on the wings. Paul Eleftheradis had a great game under siege across half back and never gave up on the contest.
Blackwood though ran away with the game in last quarter.
The game was played in great spirits with both teams coming off with no injuries and great hit out for the day.
Play of the day was Robert Johnstone working hard to space and gathering a loose ball and while out all by himself in space, pinpointed a beautiful pass to his mate Joe Turcci. Unfortunately for the Superdogs, Joe is a longtime Blackwood master, playing across the half back line.
Big thankyou to all that came out and supported us over the weekend.
Next game is away at Gawler with the Superdogs returning to Lyrup against East on the 2nd of June.
Superdogs : 5 – 5 – 35
Goals: Brad Gale 2, Shane Healy 2, Ben Gogoll
Best players: D. Lellmann, K. Polst, M. Wenman, S. Healy, S. Lowcock, A. Garoufalis,
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