Round 19 Men’s Match Report v West Coast

Swan Districts are still unbeaten in the WAFL Men’s competition against the West Coast Eagles after winning in spectacular fashion on Saturday night with Ayden Cartwright the hero with the last kick of the game.

The Swans had won all 11 previous meetings between the two teams but all of those games had been held at Steel Blue Oval with Saturday night’s match up played under lights at Lathlain’s Mineral Resources Park.

It would turn out to be quite the thriller too and despite Swan Districts leading by 18 points early in the fourth quarter, they found themselves trailing with the ball back in the middle at the 29-minute mark.

However, Swans snatched the win in specular fashion with Ayden Cartwright kicking the winning goal to secure the 11.12 (78) to 11.7 (73) victory to improve the black-and-whites to a 6-11 record ahead of a last game this coming Saturday against Peel Thunder in Mandurah.

That was one of two goals for the game from Cartwright with Jehb O’Donohue also kicking two with Jiah Reidy adding one in his 100th game to go with 15 possessions and five tackles while Leigh Kohlmann had a tough night in front of goal with five behinds.

Captain Jesse Turner also collected 34 possessions for the Swans, Josh Cipro 27, Nathan Blakely 22 (22 hit outs, 12 tackles), Jackson McLachlan 21, Luke Cotellessa 20, Max Chipper 19 and Aidan Clarke 16 in his 99th game.

Swan Districts were looking to keep their perfect record against West Coast in the WAFL alive but it was also the first ever time they hadn’t played at Steel Blue Oval with the Swans managing just the six behinds in the first quarter.

The Eagles kicked the only three goals of the first quarter opposed to that and on the back of it, went into quarter-time leading by 13 points.

West Coast also kicked the first goal of the second quarter to be leading by 18 points and it took until the 11-minute mark for Swan Districts to kick their first goal of the game thanks to Jye Chalcraft.

Jehb O’Donohue added another soon after and by half-time the Swans had managed to cut the Eagles lead back to five points.

Swan Districts then took over the lead to start the second half with an early goal to Nathan Blakely and then Ayden Cartwright added another.

Jiah Reidy kicked another for Swans in his 100th game as did Tom Smith, Jesse Turner and O’Donohue before three quarter-time, but West Coast stayed in touch with four goals of their own.

Swan Districts were leading by just seven points at three quarter-time before debutant Leon Kickett and Otis Harvey kicked truly to start the last term to open up an 18-point lead.

However, the game had a thrilling finish to come with Harry Barnett kicking three goals in 11 minutes for the Eagles to put them in front and within touching distance of a first ever win against Swan Districts.

Then from that next centre bounce, Swan Districts got the clearance and when the ball came to ground, Ayden Cartwright swooped and evaded his West Coast tacklers, and perhaps even got taken high along the way.

But then he had an inside-out snap on his right boot that went straight through in what was the last kick of the game to win it in stunning fashion for Swan Districts to keep their perfect record alive against the Eagles.