At the final whistle,

the Magpies were home comfortably by 37 points.

But Tanunda went into

the game missing the star quartet of Ben Newberry, Alex Kennedy, Luke Wells and Andrew Prior who were playing at Port Pirie in the zone championships.

And Barossa, still harboring an outside chance of finals action, could have helped their prospects with a win over the reigning champs.

But the Bulldogs, already undermanned, were hit further when Michael Taylor suffered a hamstring injury at training.

Barossa changed the structure of the game from the first bounce with a three-man forward line, designed to ease the pressure on star centre half forward Heath Commane by forcing the opposition to cover him straight up rather than congesting the area.

Coach Rian Nelson explained the tactic.

“We know our forward line is very one dimensional and we can’t hide from that,” Nelson said.”This way we can get Heath into a contest that gives him a fair chance.”

Tanunda countered with Nick Schmidt shadowing Commane, and Karl Martin playing a sweeping role across halfback and dropping into the ‘hot spot’.

Ben Britton and Matt Prior rotated between ruck and full forward to fill those two holes and they wore Bulldog ruckman Ross Christie down as the day went on which gave the Pies a clear advantage in the final term when the game was there to be won.

A scrappy third term saw the game in the balance with Tanunda leading by 12 points at the final change but the Pies nailed the first two goals of the final term to seize the momentum and were never headed.

Tanunda coach Steve Lubcke was happy to get away with the win.

“It’s a game that we could quite easily have dropped with some significant outs, so to win with eight players under the age of 20 was very pleasing,” Lubcke said.

Ashley Amber was Barossa’s best with his hard work on the boggy side of the field while Tom McCarthy continued his development with a strong showing.

The Bulldogs face another tough ask next week as they travel to play second-placed Nuriootpa while Tanunda host Willaston where a win will maintain the Magpies firm grip on top spot.