SA Footy

THOMAS FARMS OVAL | SUNDAY 19TH APRIL | 2.10PM

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

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.

Sturt by 27 points

After last year's capitulation, I would expect the Eags to make sturt fight every minute of the game. An acceptable loss would be 3-4 goals or better and Sturt made to work bloody hard.

STURT

League

F Joshua Hone, Oliver Grivell, Daniel Schoell

HF Jed McEntee, Morgan Ferres, Sam Conforti

C Charlie Parker, Tom Lewis, Luca Slade

HB Charlie Fryer, Zac Becker, Thomas McCourt

B Rory Illman, Will Coomblas, Luke Edmonds

R Amos Doyle, Martin Frederick, Will Snelling

INT Tom Emmett, Louis Kellaway, Loch Rawlinson, Nick Sadler, Willa Taylor, Ned Walter, James White

IN Louis Kellaway, Will Snelling, Ned Walter, James White

OUT Alex Holt (Hand)

NEW Louis Kellaway (Glenunga), James White (Tea Tree Gully)

EAGLES

League

F Nicholas Hayes, Jack Hayes, Sam Nicholls

HF Max Beattie, Connor Ballenden, Jett Hasting

C Sam Rowland, Riley Knight, Kade Herbert

HB Joseph Sinor, Liam Puncher, Ethan Grace

B Lukas Cooke, Jordan Moore, Max Litster

R Jordan Lukac, Ted Clohesy, James Rowe

INT Jack Cook, Bailey Hann, Blake Hansen, Harper Montgomery, Harvey Pedler, Daniel Sladojevic, Patrick Weckert

IN Bailey Hann, Jett Hasting, Patrick Weckert

Sturt by 87

WWT by a goal.

Strut by 6 goals

Sturt despite having 3245 players out, to win by 5 goals.

Upset brewing, Eagles 22 up in the 3rd.

Wiggles getting their usual ride from the boys in pink I see, two late ones to Sturt make it only 25-16 to the Eags

Eagles get up by 2, a 637 point turnaround from last year.

Well, that was close. Go Eagles.

Oh great. Now the Bays get to face an angry Sturt on the rebound.

We missed Lewis today bloody awful 2nd quarter hopefully starting to get a few players back for next week.

Huge win for the Eagles against invincible Sturt
New flag favourites

The Eagles also had a few missing, Mutch (Magarey medal runner-up), Fleeton, D'Aloia, Weckert, Williams and Pearce.
Plus they lost Moore during the game.

Normal service resumed at Unley Oval with an Eagles win over sturt after last year's aberration.
The second quarter was especially good with linking chains of play to cut through the blues defence. Thought Herbert was especially good for us and Ballenden finally kicked accurately. Nice touch at the end with Puncher taking a 'Leo Barry' type saving mark against his old club. Clohesy is doing a lot of the grunt work in the middle that we were missing last year.
However, we have seen this scenario at the start of the last two seasons under Jacobs, a promising start and a dismal finish to the season. Have the Eags learnt anything from the past 2 years? Time will tell.
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Tom Emmett has been offered a one-match ban for kicking Eagle Riley Knight.


https://youtu.be/AGbwNXQ2G2w