TANGLE: The football and Tanunda’s Parker Neldner’s head are wrapped up in a Barossa District arm lock on Saturday. The Barossa players are from left Aaron McAlpine, Tim Brown-Pichugin and Nathan Emes.
 

Tanunda withstood a spirited Barossa District side whose first half saw the Bulldogs right in the contest.
Eventually, the Magpies pulled away to establish a 61-point victory.
After suffering massive defeats at the hands of Kapunda and Gawler Central in their previous two games it was widely expected that the Bulldogs would again be treated to another mammoth loss when Tanunda visited on Saturday.
The slippery, difficult conditions were just what the doctor ordered for the home side and Barossa came out with a level of determination that surprised the Magpies as they dragged the Pies into a dogfight.
Tanunda’s cause wasn’t helped when their ruckman Jason Bayliss left the game with a calf injury in the first term robbing them of a key advantage against Barossa’s improvised ruck unit.
The return of Matt Stelzer from retirement added experience to the young Barossa side and helped cover the absence of Adam Spencer and helped Barossa take it to Tanunda in the first half.
Dean Cutting was prominent as a conduit for the home side while Darren Sharp gave them a powerful presence deep in attack.
After trailing by a point at quarter time, a better second quarter saw Tanunda edge out to a 19 point lead at the main break where Magpies coach Matt Booth demanded more from his players.
Ask and you shall receive, as the saying goes and that’s exactly what happened.
Tanunda’s intensity and work rate lifted dramatically as they asserted themselves on the game.
Playing deep in defence, Lachie Agars had an impact taking numerous intercept marks, Tom Schiller began to break free from the hard tag applied by Ryan Watson.
In general, Tanunda adopted a wet weather style of football and were much more direct with the likes of Ryan Bignell and Aron Fechner driving the ball forward.
Whether it was a mental lapse in coming up against a struggling opponent or an accidental lull Tanunda’s mindset was better in the second half as they poured on nine goals to two in the second half.
“Tanunda went up a gear that’s for sure,” said four-time premiership player Paul Stelzer.
“It’s been very different this year with such a young side but there were plenty of positives to take out of Saturday in that we can contain teams by scrapping hard and the more this group plays and trains together the better we’ll get.”
Ben Britton continued from last week’s good form with three goals to lead all scorers.
Tanunda captain Nick Schmidt was wary of overstating the win,
“The result was good but we had to work hard in the second half to get it,” Schmidt said.
“In saying that it was very good that we were able to get back into our structures. It was also good to see Jordan Wilson-King play his first full game for the club, and he showed some good signs.”
The Pies will need to be switched on this week as they host a rampaging Willaston.
Roger James and the Bulldogs get the week off to regroup and focus on playing Willaston the following week.

By Mike Teakle ~ Barossa & Light Herald

May 13, 2014, 12:34 p.m.