Round 3 Sturt v WWT

[PatowalongaPirate]

THOMAS FARMS OVAL | SUNDAY 19TH APRIL | 2.10PM

[pmackk]

Couple more injuries but should get a couple back sturt by 4 goals.

[Aerie]

For most of the last 30 odd years, Unley Oval had been a happy hunting ground for the Eagles, but last year you would've rather man a power station in Iran than be at Unley Oval as an Eagle supporter for the 1st half of that game. Sturt 16.9 (105) to Eagles 0.2 (2) was the half time scoreline. It was Round 11 and the Eagles were sitting 5th with a 6-5 record. It was the worst half of football I've ever seen an Eagles team play. Three of the next four games would see the Eagles defeated by 100+ points and the other game was a loss to wooden spooner West. The Eagles wouldn't win again until the final round, a 3 point win over North, and as it turned out, Sturt would only lose one more game, a 2 point loss to Adelaide in that same round, on the way to a premiership.

And so they meet in Round 3 of 2026 "undefeated" and the Eagles sitting atop the ladder. Maybe a chance for the Eagles to put the horrors of last year behind them? Regardless of the scoreboard, anything less than fighting tooth and nail to compete shouldn't be an option for a team that has developed a soft underbelly under Jacobs and hasn't been able to go the distance in recent seasons. I suspect Sturt flex their muscle in their first game at Unley, as they unveil their premiership flag. Mattner having fine tuned this team over several years in his second successful stint as coach of Sturt, something Jacobs will be trying to emulate at Oval Avenue in his 3rd season in charge. This game, although early in the season, will tell how far the Eagles have come over the off-season of 25/26, knowing there is still a long way to go.