Tanunda advanced to their third straight grand final thanks to a four-point win in one of the most amazing games of football ever seen in the Barossa, Light and Gawler.
With about 80mm of rain falling in Angaston from Thursday morning to Saturday night, by the time the two A grade teams took the field they were greeted by a mass of mud and surface water.
A game that had loomed as a classic example of Aussie rules became a combination of mud wrestling, water polo and football.
Barossa appeared to seize the early momentum when playing coach Roger James marked on the boundary 25 metres from goal.
He kicked from what was the only section of grass remaining on the oval but as the ball clunked into the goal post it was clear he had missed a golden opportunity.
Soon after, Tanunda’s Sam Agars was awarded a free kick for a ruck infringement by Barossa captain Ross Christie 15 metres out from goal and duly delivered what would turn out to be the only goal of the game.
Just when everyone thought conditions couldn’t get any worse, the arrival of a thick fog in the second term made it nearly impossible to see from one end of the ground to the other.
At the start of the third term a cold wind caused the players to shiver even more but did have the positive impact of clearing the fog.
With both teams featuring star-studded midfields it was unclear where the game turner would come from.
But as he has so many times in his career, Tanunda’s Karl Martin stepped up and continually read the play better than his opponents, marking and halting Barossa’s advances.
Martin’s influence was not lost on Magpies’ coach Steve Lubcke.
“In that first half Karl single handedly kept us in the game, I thought he was fantastic,” Lubcke said.
“But I couldn’t go past Luke Wells as our best player. His effort was tremendous. That win was so important because we’ve got a week off to recover from that hard slog before the grand final.”
Lubcke was thrilled with the efforts of the Prior brothers in defence.
“Andrew did a terrific job on James and Matt kept James Angus out of the game.”
Diminutive Bulldog wingman Ash Amber was the best player on the ground in the first half, picking the ball up better than anyone else on the field. Unfortunately on a day where 15 metres was considered a long kick he couldn’t have a big impact.
The sheer impact of the mud meant both coaches had to throw their tactics out the window.
“There really wasn’t any coaching you could do,” James said. “It came down to the players having the desire to persist and I can’t doubt the ability of either side to have a go at the footy.
“There was a lot of courage out there. You can’t get conditions worse than that and now we have to regroup and get on with the job against Central this week.”
Lubcke concurred.
“The (clip) board went by the wayside by quarter time,” he said. “It’s a game that was uncoachable, we were pretty redundant.”
In the second term, Darren Sharp had to leave the ground with concussion but Barossa fought hard and always a chance.
However they were simply unable to score with just two points in the third quarter being their only score in the second half.
Despite the conditions the final quarter had the crowd on edge as Barossa had the ball in their half of the ground for most of the time but Tanunda’s defenders stood resolute, smothering everything in their path.
“It was a bit lucky because they had all the play,” Tom Schiller, Tanunda captain said.
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