Great Southern Colts Carnival: Fourth-place finish for banged-up Great Southern Storm after loss to Uppers

A banged-up Great Southern Storm finished fourth at the 2023 Great Southern Colts Carnival, losing their play-off to Upper Great Southern on Sunday. The Storm’s hopes of back-to-back titles were ended with a 70-point thumping at the hands of eventual champions Peel on Saturday afternoon. However, injuries and fatigue played their part on the team representing the Great Southern Football League, as they fielded only 21 fit players on the final day. Josh Duffield (finger), Clay Michael (knee), George Bockman (ankle) and Mitch Paine (quad) were all lost to injury before the third and fourth play-off. Scores were level at quarter-time before Upper Great Southern took control with majors from Stockton Shotter, Riley Holden and Braydon Keley. Three goals to one in the third term extended Upper Great Southern’s lead to 24 points and they did enough in the final term to prevent any Storm comeback. Shotter finished with three majors in the 7.9 (51) to 5.0 (30) win while midfielder Tom Kilpatrick was superb winning a stack of clearances and possessions. Abdul Pickett, Kacey Beard and Keley (two goals) were also key parts of Upper Great Southern’s strong finish to the carnival. The Storm kicked back-to-back goals through Kobi Keen and Harvey Taylor to skip out to an early 12-point lead in the second term but they couldn’t sustain it. Kobi Keen and Lachlan Cale battled hard through in the midfield, Lucas Ravenhill was a real presence in the ruck and Tom Gawned again produced a strong performance. Storm coach Darrell Panizza said there were a lot of positives from the group’s performance. “I was more than happy with what they did, we were the youngest team there and had 17 kids going to the carnival for the first time,” he said. “The first two games were really good but we spent a lot of energy and probably forgot there was a third and fourth game. “I thought we were really brave, we won the last quarter against Peel when we were getting belted and stood up in the last against Uppers so the boys have got some resilience.” The Storm were outclassed by Peel in a virtual semifinal, conceding 10 goals in the opening half. Cooper Gray starred with five goals for Peel with Storm unable to match their bigger and stronger rivals despite the best efforts of Lucas Ravenhill, Gawned and Gus Bockman. The Storm were able to hold Peel to five goals in the last half while Adam Large, Ravenhill and Kevin Sibosado added majors for the losing side. Earlier on Saturday the Storm booted seven goals in a dominant first half against Eastern Districts, who won the second half, but the Storm went on to score a second win, 9.5 (59) to 4.10 (34) with Michael booting five goals. Midfielders Marlon Mastalerz and Keen were terrific in the win and Gawned held up the back half. In their opening game of the carnival the Storm had to withstand a strong challenge from Esperance to claim a three-point win. The Storm trailed by three points at three-quarter-time but dug deep as Michael booted two vital majors in the final stanza and Jhett Morrison-Carter also converted to hand their side a thrilling win. Keen, Mastalerz and Gawned were the standouts in the 5.6 (36) to 5.3 (33) triumph. Panizza highlighted the individual efforts of Keen and Mastalerz in the middle, the tackling pressure of Hulm and the intercept marking of Tait Hartfield at the carnival.