Two teams from the bottom four from last year battled it out at Etihad Stadium on Sunday afternoon. In a tight-fought contest between GWS and St Kilda, the match was eventually won by GWS.
The Giants held on by 11 points for a well deserved victory.
It was the Saints getting off to the perfect start with Tim Membrey kicking the first goal of the game and his new club. GWS however quickly responded through Lachie Whitfield. For the rest of the quarter the two teams traded goals in the a tightly contested first quarter and by quarter time it was GWS who led just by three goals five behinds to three goals straight.
With the second quarter beginning and both teams wanting to break the deadlock to their advantage, it was GWS who were eventually able to get a break. To the Saints credit there will for the contest and their intent remained and it was because of this the Giants weren’t able to break away. However by half time they did have a handy break of 23 points. Due to the dominance that GWS had in that quarter they should have scored more, due to them kicking 6.4 compared to St Kilda kicking only 2.2 in that quarter of football.
St Kilda got off to a good start in the next, with David Armitage getting a goal in the first two minutes. This brought it back to 17 points, but after Jeremy Cameron kicked his second and bought the margin out to 24 points the arm wrestle began.
The sides started trading behinds and then the clangers started to rack up. It wasn’t until the 18th-minute mark that Cameron got his third and GWS got their lead out to a game-high 30 points, but to St Kilda’s credit they got the quick reply through Josh Bruce and bough it back to 24. Then came one of the highlights of the game, with Josh Bruce taking and absolute screamer over three GWS players, but he wasn’t able to convert into a goal and then Jarred Geary had a shot from 30-35 metres out that didn’t make it. With St Kilda ruing their opportunities lost, the three quarter time siren went with GWS leading by 23 points.
Cameron kicked a goal three minutes into the last quarter and St Kilda knew they were up against it. With three quick goals, you could feel St Kilda thought they had a sniff. They got within eight points but unfortunately for them they couldn’t get closer than that. It was GWS’ first win against the Saints in their short history.
All in all it was a good contest between the two up-and-coming sides, with both teams showing massive upside for the year and the future.
St. Kilda 3.0 5.2 7.5 11.12 (78)
G.W.S 3.5 7.9 9.12 12.15 (87)Goals: GWS: Cameron 4, MaCarthy 3, Shiel, Treloar, Palmer, Whitfield, Ward.
St. Kilda: Bruce 2, Membrey 2,Savage 2, Schneider 2, Armitage, Dunstan, RiewoldtBest: GWS: Treloar, Cameron, MaCarthy Whitfield, Mumford, Ward
St. Kilda: Steven, Armitage, Geary, Montagna, BruceMy Votes: 3 Treloar (GWS), 2 Cameron (GWS), 1 Steven (St. Kilda)
Umpires: Harris, Ryan, Mitchell
Official crowd: 18,794 at Etihad Stadium
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