GUNNING for its fourth consecutive Barossa Light & Gawler Football Association reserves flag, Angaston got off to a sluggish start against both a stiff breeze, and a confident South Gawler side.
The Lions made it to quarter time with a 3.3 (21) to 1.1 (7) lead, but then the tide began to turn.
After a South Gawler player was yellow-carded for charging, the game’s intensity went up a level, but some inaccurate kicking from the Panthers prevented them from pulling into a lead as the sides went into halftime locked at 3.4 (22).
The wind admittedly died down in the third term when the Lions needed it most, allowing Angaston to control a lot of the field position battle and hit the scoreboard, but Leslie Baker (three goals) and Aaron Bevis (two goals) kept South Gawler in touch with a one-point margin for the final change of ends.
Unfortunately for South Gawler, weather played a big part in the result as the light breeze turned into a gale at times blowing hard in the Panthers’ direction for the run home.
To Angaston’s credit, it capitalised in a big way and didn’t allow a single scoring shot in the last term with its midfield doing a superb job forcing the ball forward, and then building a wall to prevent it getting out.
Panther Jack Ryan swooped on a scrappy soccer-clearance inside-50 to finish from 30-out straight in front to finally give his side a small margin of error.
Angaston key forward and league-leading goal kicker Will Moulds wasted a couple chances throughout the day, but kicked three important goals at key moments to give his side a lift and pull away late to make the final score 8.9 (57) to 5.5 (35).
Angaston coach Josh Young gave credit to South Gawler’s effort for all four quarters, but said his boys lifted in the second half and were too much.
“(At halftime) I spoke to the boys about their attack on the footy,” he said.
“When we do that well, we play well enough I feel to beat just about anyone.
“We also started using our inside-50s much better whereas sometimes we burn those, so it was nice to see.
“I actually thought (South Gawler’s) fourth quarter effort was still really good, but we had Josh Koch back there just intercept marking everything.
“Henry Ratcliff too – his second half was amazing – he’s one of our under-17s who just didn’t quite make the cut for the A’s, and he’s obviously way too good for B-grade, but we’re happy to have him.”
Angaston will play Gawler Central this Saturday at 12.25 at Freeling Oval in the season’s decider – with the Tigers winning this year’s home-and-away season matchup 3.10 (28) to 2.3 (15) in a wet-weather slog.
