Magpies’ injury crisis deepens on the eve of GSFL finals

Denmark-Walpole’s injury toll reached crisis point on Saturday with the loss of three key players in their heavy defeat by Railways in the final round of the regular season at McLean Park. The Magpies went down by 77 points and slipped to fourth place, with their percentage taking a big hit before North Albany were thrashed on Sunday and as a result finished in fourth with an inferior percentage. After the Kangas and Magpies swapped places mid-round, they will now face the same opponents for the second straight week in this weekend’s preliminary finals. However, the Magpies will have to cover the loss of co-captains Alec Haskins and Luke Hutcheson and midfielder Brodie Reeve, the trio were all casualties from the round-10 loss. The day began horribly for the home side, who were celebrating their 2010 premiership with a players reunion, when Hutcheson went down after injuring his knee in a contest on the far wing. Hutcheson was stretchered from the ground and is understood to have suffered an anterior cruciate ligament injury. His fellow co-captain, Haskins, went down with a serious hamstring injury to make matters worse and then in the final term, Reeve came from the ground holding his jaw, which is broken. Having already lost star recruit Ash McGrath (shoulder) for the season and arguably the competition’s most important player, Shayne Zanetti (ankle), the Magpies have been smashed by injuries in recent weeks. Cody Kerr, Josh DeCampo and Jarrod Brack are other first-choice players on the sidelines. “When both your skippers go down, it kicks you in the guts a bit,” Magpies co-coach Ryan Gaerth said. “We’ve copped it pretty hard over the past few weeks but what do you do? We are still in the hunt and we are in the finals, so we’ll give it a red-hot crack.” The Pies matched the Tigers in the opening term and the visitors edged ahead through a late Henrick Alforque goal before Matt Palfrey stamped his mark on the game in the second term. Palfrey kicked the first two goals of the second, one from beyond 50m, before teammate Jayden Scott was yellow carded for a late bump and as a result Dionne Woods added his second for the home side. But Palfrey continued to propel his side further ahead as he added two more goals and then Joel Want kicked truly to give the Tigers a 32-point half-time lead. After half-time, the Tigers kicked five unanswered goals and if not for their inaccuracy in front of goal in the last, where they kicked 3.10, the deficit could have been worse. In the Benno Napier Memorial Game, Palfrey won the best-on- ground medal for his superb display while the work of ruckman Xavier Brenton-Reed, Shane Braimbridge and captain Bodhi Stubber was impressive as the visitors won, 13.19 (97) to 3.2 (20). Ash Smith, Matt Dykes and Ben Farquhar toiled hard for the Magpies. Tigers coach Troy Leo said his team played a good brand of footy. “Consistency is what we’ve been struggling with,” he said. “So it was nice to get through pretty well and play some good footy and secure second spot and a home final.”