Coming off a big defeat at the hands of Port, but having been very competitive for three quarters, Solomontown will travel to Port Augusta on Saturday to tackle West Augusta.
This is the first of two consecutive games on the road and the second of two in three weeks away from home. Although they were soundly beaten in the end last week, if not for the ordinary effort in the first quarter the result could have been much
closer.
West Augusta are in similar vein of form to Sollies having lost their last four games after recording four wins from as many outings to start the season. After round four the Hawks were sitting in second position and only percentage behind Port. Currently they are sitting in third position and in danger of slipping out of the top four.
After allowing Port to do as they pleased in the first term Sollies found themselves 10 goals behind after one quarter and no chance of winning the game. To the players credit they threw everything at the Bulldogs for the last three quarters and added little to the damage already done. The confidence gained from that effort should help the players in the lead up to this match.
The last encounter between these two teams was the last victory for West and resulted in a 144 point margin. Since then their biggest losing margin was 39 points to Central Augusta last week while Sollies have been unable to get closer than 55 points to any of their opposition.
Forgetting the first term last week, Sollies would have been pleased with the form of a couple of their youngsters in Zach Seimer and Trent Hoare. Both shown plenty of courage at times and were well up in their best players. They will be hoping for Marc Scollin, Lucas Tancock, Ben Abella and Chuck Sawyer to continue the form they showed Sunday after being very quiet for the previous few weeks.
Scollin had his best effort for the season and showed what he is capable of. Damien Foster will again be called on to hold the forward line together and kick a bag of goals. Sollies will be without Captain Jarrod Davies but could have Leigh Promnitz returning after serving his two game suspension.
West Augusta relies on Hayden Warren, Shannon Page and Matthew Woodforde to kick a winning score and Sollies defenders will need to be on their game right from the outset. The midfield battle should be a good one with Ben Goodridge, Lindsay Bearman and Ben Abella finding a bit of the ball last week and they come up against in form players Adam Zubrinich, Rhys Dadleh and Daniel Buckskin.
Last time they met the three Hawks dominated the game through the middle and will need to be held for Sollies to have any chance of
winning.
A continuation of the form shown towards the end of last weeks game and meeting West when their confidence must be down after successive losses, Solomontown must consider themselves a good chance of registering their first victory for the season.
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