Adrenaline sounds warning Siren

Adelaide Adrenaline secured maximum points in a hard fought weekend against the Newcastle North Star-Sirens at IceArena Thebarton, 3^rd and 4^th December 2011.

Adrenaline now sit two games clear at the top of the AWIHL standings and would now most certainly be considered favourites for the 2011/12 championships to be held in Adelaide on the 25^th and 26^th February 2012.

Once again Adrenaline dominated the scoring 12 goals to 5 after their devastating 14 goal haul in Melbourne two weeks ago. While the weekend’s action did not suggest this score line, this is a worrying sign for the rest of the competition.

The weekend started seeing Adelaide out of the blocks scoring two early goals but only to see them give up that advantage through some untidy and sloppy play in particular from their defense. Newcastle was able to take some advantage finding holes in Adelaide’s defense that at times pushed too deep into the Newcastle zone. This allowed Newcastle to get inside Adrenaline’s defensive line with open ice ahead of them but struggled to hold the puck long enough to take full advantage.

Complacency with Adrenaline’s second periods have been a concern this season to date, but this weekend that turn around scoring a combined 5 goals in the two games and ultimately setting up both of their wins. This would be very pleasing to the coaching staff as we are now heading towards the break and business end of the season.

Adrenaline’s Belinda James and Siren’s Sera Dogramaci did an outstanding job for their respective teams in goal despite the score line and Ashleigh Brown coming into the game for Sera in the third period. Ashleigh and Adrenaline’s Claudia Tom also found it tough in game two as the game was more open and played at a much quicker pace with more intensity.

It was a real team effort and a pleasing sight for Adelaide’s coaching staff with no one really standing out. Rylie Padjen, Andrea Steranko and Bethanie Kavanagh were solid performers in game 1 with Diana Glass having a more influential game 2 and Sari Lehmann getting the job done from defense and being able to impose herself in front of goal was extremely pleasing.

Newcastle’s efforts won’t go unnoticed with impressive performances over the weekend by Amelia Matheson, Rachel White and Melissa Rulli in game 1. Samantha Lai had an outstanding game2 with Sharnita Crompton and Sharna Godfrey solid all weekend.

Both sides found themselves quite familiar with the penalty box as 21 penalties were possibly handed out. Questions have been raised again at standards with both camps left a little bemused by some of the calls made and missed. Fortunately the games were not influenced by this on the scoreboard as the contest was tight with two well evenly matched teams battling it out.

The weekend didn’t go without drama with Newcastle’s Sharna Godfrey suffering what has been reported as a fracture to her lower leg. Sharna will be sidelined for 5 to 6 weeks which will impact on her national team commitments. We all wish Sharna a speedy recovery and hope to see her back on the ice as soon as possible.

We now head into the Christmas and New Year break with the battle for supremacy resuming on the 21^st and 22^nd January 2012. Adelaide will be heading off to the Sunshine state to finish off their series with the Brisbane Goannas in a double-header.

Brisbane will sure to be a tougher opposition on their home ice and with something to prove as the season starts coming to an end.

For all your future updates continue to watch this space, if you’re on twitter follow @ADL_AdrenalineW and myself @IceandAll. You can also get on Hunter Adelaide Adrenaline’s and RinkSide Media (IceandAll) facebook pages.