North and South finish strong

The AFL Broken Hill A-Grade competition wrapped up in Round 15 where North and South had big wins to end the home and away season before the finals series begins this weekend.

 NORTH V WEST

North ended the regular season in second place with a 55-point win over West in the first match of the day’s doubleheader at Jubilee Oval.

Blake Gebhardt got the scoring underway in the second minute of the game as the Bulldogs found the first clearance and inside 50, leading to the first goal of the contest. The Bulldogs kept their opponents scoreless in the first quarter, kicking six goals before the Robins found their first score, and nine goals unanswered before the Robins found the big sticks through Brock Ellis. West had some momentum through patches in the second half but were undone by a clinical North side who continued to chip away.

Shane Dalby led the way for North with four goals, with contributions also from Bailey Shepherd’s three majors. Lachlan Harvey was the main man up forward for West, kicking four goals as Brett Martin slotted two for the side.

“The fast start was at the top of our whiteboard, to try to dictate terms early and get into scoreboard pressure, and we did that pretty well,” North coach, Mark Pitt, said.

West coach, Nathan Pearce, told us that his side, “went out and tried a couple of things in that first 10 minutes and it didn’t really work”, adding that after that scoreless first quarter, things got better.

Goals: Shane Dalby (North), Lachlan Harvey (West) 4, Bailey Shepherd (North) 3

 CENTRAL V SOUTH

South didn’t let up in their game, roaring out to a 187-point win against Central in the late game of the Saturday afternoon doubleheader in a record-breaking encounter.

The Roos kicked the first 15 goals of the game and had the Magpies scoreless going into the main break. Central found the first goal of the third quarter through Samuel Wilson, but South continued the rampage, kicking 14 of the next 15 to crack the 200-point barrier for the second time this season.

A new record for the most goals kicked in a single game has now been set by Cody Schorn, whose 19-goal haul beats out former South forward Brad Brooks (17 goals). Todd Davidson kicked six goals towards South’s tally which included three in the final quarter alone. For Central, Wilson kicked both his side’s goals.

“We went into the game and had our own little goals we wanted to achieve. Apart from the inaccuracy early in the game again, we achieved pretty much every single goal,” South coach, Craig Thomas, said.

Central coach, Sheldon Hall, said “South are the best team for a reason – they’re well-coached and they’ve got a lot of great players”, adding “at the end of the day, they were just too good for us”.

“Our guys, we still battled it out. Again, it’s all been about patches this year. We had moments where we had the footy, but reflecting back on it, the win-loss column wasn’t great, but there was still a lot of positives.”

Goals: Cody Schorn (South) 19, Todd Davidson (South) 6, Kyran Blore (South), Samuel Wilson (Central) 2

This weekend sees the semi-final between North and West played at Jubilee Oval on Saturday, from 2.30pm to decide who will face South in the Grand Final a week later.