Villi’s U18s & U16s Match Report

UNDER 18s

The Under 18s played in a great game of footy on Saturday against  West Adelaide in our annual Jake Watson Shield match.

The game celebrates the life of Jake Watson who tragically died during an under 19 match between the two clubs in 2002 as well as three other young Bloods Corey Seimers, Glenn Knott and Ben Mitchell who lost their lives in car accidents whilst they were part of the West Adelaide junior program.

A tough first quarter where we didn’t quite take our chances saw us with a 6 point lead at half time 1goal 6points to 1 goal. In the second quarter we started positively kicking the first goal but West Adelaide hit back with some good ball movement and finishing and they took a 5 point lead into half time, 5 goals 1 point to 3 goals 8 points.

We put our earlier inaccuracy behind us in the 3rd term kicking 8 goals straight in our highest scoring quarter of the season and things were looking better for us at three quarter time with a 33 point lead. As they has done all day,  the Bloods fought back and were winning clearances and set up goal scoring opportunities and reduced the margin by kicking 4 goals – a Zac Schwarz goal at the 22 minute mark sealed the game for us  and we were able to close out the win by 24 points – 13 goals 9 points to 9 goals 9 points.

Zac Schwarz was lively around the ball and up forward with 5 goals, Jett Hasting returned to the team from St Peter’s College and was also a strong performer in our midfield and showed some great leadership, Jack Mumford in only his second game of under 18 footy was a very good forward for us taking 12 marks, Zane Peucker worked hard in our midfield and Charlie West was always a presence in our forward line (3 goals) as well as in ruck.  This week Declan Walshaw played his first game of 2024 which had been impacted through a significant injury and did some nice things for us.

The win has put us in the final four and we will need to win the final game against South Adelaide on Saturday at Maughan Thiem KIA Oval to make sure we retain that spot.

Shane Reardon – U18 Coach

UNDER 16s

In a triple header at Hisense Stadium, after the Reserves and before the Under 18’s, our Under 16 Team were keen to redeem themselves from their previous encounter against West.

Westies began well kicking 4 goals 4 points to our 2 goals 2 for the first quarter, we made some in roads during the second quarter and trailed by 6 points at the main break.

In the Third we had a lot of the ball but just couldn’t capitalise, kicking 1 goal 4 with our 14 inside 50 entries to Westies 1 point. The game was in the balance at three quarter time in which we held a lead of 1 point. Westies jumped out of the blocks quickly in the last and kicked the first 4 goals of the quarter, we rallied late and kicked the last 2 goals, but the game was pretty much over and West Adelaide went on to win by 7 points.

Perry Szklarz in the midfield found plenty of the ball as did Tate Wolthers, Khye Maddern and Riley Miller had their moments as did Jensen Frantz down back & Romario Clemente up Forward. Zach Holdsworth kicked 2 goals with singles to Tate Wolthers, Romario Clemente, Seth Hadley, Tommy Lucas, Khye Maddern and Hayden Grieger.

This week we take on South Adelaide at Home in our last game for the Season.

Darren Hams – U16 Coach