BULLDOGS FINISH OVER DEMONS

Posted on 07/08/2012

By Mark Thornber

Round 20, Perth v South Fremantle

Fremantle Oval, Sunday 5 August 2012

 

Perth                           1.5        1.5        9.10      12.12    84

South Fremantle        1.4        6.8       10.11    16.12    108

Perth stayed with South Fremantle until midway through the last quarter when the Bulldogs with the advantage of a strengthening breeze finished strongly beating Perth by 24 points at Fremantle Oval on Sunday.

Perth kicked to the hospital end of the ground in the first term and were gaining plenty of possessions in the midfield. Much of their attacking football was being set up by the rebound provided by both Leon Davis and Julian Jacobs across half Back.

Davis set up the Demon’s first major through Simon Tunbridge. South’s soon responded and with both sides failing to convert their opportunities Perth held a 1 point lead at quarter time after kicking 1 goal 6 to 1 goal 5.

The second term again saw Perth play some good football through the midfield with Ross Young and Alistair Smith picking up plenty of the ball. Tunbridge booted his second goal and when Fraser McInnes converted truly the Demons had opened up a handy break.

The Bulldogs soon bounced back though as key forward Ben Saunders kicked a couple of majors to again even up the scores. Davis was continuing to be damaging coming out of the backline but with the Demons simply bombing the ball in long the Bulldogs defence was easily able to spoil their attacking moves.

Saunders continued to be a headache for the Perth backline and along with the speedy Jayden Woods they booted a late goal each to provide the home side with a lead of 7 points in a low scoring first half.

Perth with the final use of the scoring end soon snapped a goal through the lively Joel Leeson. With the match again evenly poised Ross Young showed his true class by snapping truly to bring up the Demon’s 7th goal and then 1 minute later kicked a wonderful long running goal to further increase Perth’s lead.

This seemed to sparked the Bulldogs into action as they hit a real purple patch booting the next 4 goals and to take back momentum of the match. Tunbridge kicked a clever goal righte three quarter time, which saw the Bulldogs lead by 7 points.

With the breeze now at its strongest and favouring the home side the last quarter was always going to be difficult for the Demons. South kicked the first major and when Chris Billings was controversially penalised for a deliberate out of bounds, which resulted in a double goal to South Fremantle the result was almost sealed.

Both teams battled hard for the remaining of the term but with Perth failing to find any marking targets apart from Tunbridge the ball was being rebounded quickly by the Bulldogs defence.

In the end the 4 goal victory was disappointing for Perth after they stuck with their opponents for over three quarters of the match. Davis was clearly the best for the Demons with 26 touches and was well supported by both Young and Alistair Smith.

Tunbridge finished with 4 majors for Perth but lacked any real support up forward for most of the match.

Goals: Tunbridge 4, Young 2, Alistair Smith, Stack, T. Noakes, Bevan, McInnes, Leeson 1.

Best: Davis, Young, Alistair Smith, Tedesco, Tunbridge, Jacobs.

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