STEPHEN O’LOUGHLIN
ANGASTON remains in the hunt for a
Barossa, Light & Gawler Football Association
A-grade finals berth after a notable
32-point triumph at Gawler Central on Saturday.
South Gawler is in an unassailable position
sitting atop the ladder.
But aside from that, anything is possible for
all other finals permutations, with the sixthplaced
Panthers well and truly among the mix
of contenders, just one win (and percentage)
off second-placed Nuriootpa.
The Panthers certainly rediscovered their
pre-mid-year break form, and their 16.9 (105)
to 10.13 (73) win against the Tigers could
prove to be the springboard they have been
looking for.
It took a big effort to get over the reigning
premier, which had the upper hand early in
the contest, particularly during a second-quarter
blitz that the visitors had to strive hard to
contain.
The first term was played in two halves.
Gawler Central took the early ascendency,
jumping out to a quick 14-point lead
through ruckman Joseph Bottin’s control
of the middle, giving his midfielders
the chance to get the ball quickly into
their forwards.
However, the Panthers settled, slowing
their opposition’s run out of the midfield, and
got their hands on the ball for some attacking
forays of their own.
It was end-to-end play by both sides, but
Angaston was able to break down the home
side’s defences, allowing it to kick five
straight goals to take a 16-point buffer into
quarter time.
The second term began just like the first
with the Tigers regaining their centre clearance
dominance and, within five minutes,
William Serle had two consecutive goals on
the board to see the margin back to single
digits.
It was a game of few stoppages or pack
build-ups, resulting in continuous rebounding
off half-back, and regularly switching play to
give their forwards a clear vision of the ball
coming in.
The Panthers were able to stem their opponent’s
flow, but Gawler Central still managed
to get on top midway through the term, with
another through Serle for his third goal to put
his side four points in front.
A few late shots on goal by Angaston did
not prove fruitful, allowing Tigers to head
into half-time with a five-point advantage.
Tiger Daniel Stanley opened the second
half with his third goal. But after the
home side was unable to capitalise on three
more goal-scoring opportunities early in
the third term, Angaston began to win
some rare centre clearances through
Angus Adams taking more control in
the ruck and Marc Borholm moving
forward.
It became a decisive swap on the outcome
of the match. The visitors re-established their
fluent running game, players freed themselves
up around the ground and their path to goal
became much easier as they steered through
five goals to one to be up by 20 points at the
final break. Gawler Central did not respond
again.
Following his side’s first win since round
eight, coach Jay Shannon was impressed
with his players’ ability to rise to the required
level against the Tigers. But he is well
aware that they will need to lift again
in each of the last two weeks, starting
with a telling encounter against Kapunda
away, to realise their finals goal. “We’ll enjoy
this win because we haven’t won a game for a
while,” Shannon said.
“We’ll enjoy it, celebrate it, get that fun
and energy back within the group, and then
we just need to lift again, and hopefully we
improve from today and get a little better next
week against Kapunda.
“(We went into this week knowing) if we
win all three games then we’ll play finals,
simple as that, so the ball’s in our court.”
The Panthers were led by the performances
of defenders Ben Antonie and Nick Falland,
Shannon himself in the middle, ball magnet
Steven Summerton and young onballer Riley
Argent. Ryder Eberhard and Jed Durdin were
prominent focal points in front of goal, kicking
five and four respectively.
“We were playing some pretty ordinary
footy (before the break),” Shannon said.
“We started to play a lot better against Tanunda
before the (COVID-19 lockdown), but
then today we improved again.
“Still a lot of patches that we need to improve
on, but our ball movement’s back.
“We were playing predictable footy long
down the line, but we started to change the
angles a lot, switch the footy, use the corridor
and use the whole oval today – so it was really
impressive.”