Another candidate for game-of-the-round, the men's game between West and Norwood at Harbour Coliseum was predicted to provide great matchups at all positions. Norwood had dominated each of their earlier opponents, but with the strength and size of Blake Truslove, Kris Davis and Shane Crothers, West was one of few teams with any chance of matching the front court of David Cooper, Dan Thompson and Ketih Krause. The back court odds swung heavily in Norwood's favour when Brendan Mann was ruled out due to injury, and although Anthony Spadavecchia and Danny Phillips are both capable of scoring 20 points, the question was, who was going to shut down the in-form Todd Matthews.

Matthews' first significant stat was a turnover, but he immediately made amends by locking down Spadavecchia to force a shot clock violation. West hit the scoreboard when Spud hit Chris Molitor for a backdoor layup, but it was Norwood who raced to a 9-2 lead when Matthews came to a stop on transition, stood up as if to call a play, then exploded to the basket on an old-time sucker play.

Blake Truslove, whose commute from NZ to Port Adelaide must surely be the longest in all of basketball, finished a patented post spin move with a reverse layup, but Norwood's bigs were beginning to flex their muscle. David Cooper dunked after an on-ball screen on Andrew Webber, then contributed two of the three offensive rebounds in the next Norwood offence. The matchup between substitutes Rory Craddock and Scott Lampshire was a mismatch both ways, but after being dazed by a crushing foul, Lampshire had the last laugh of the quarter, hitting a layup on the buzzer to give Norwood a 32-16 lead.

West varied its defence in the third and it paid immediate dividends. Danny Phillips converted on a three pointer at the other end , and later in the quarter, Chris Molitor did the same after a skip pass out of the post from Truslove. In the interim, it was all Norwood. Matthews extended for two left hand layups over taller opponents to cap a 10-2 Norwood run. West hit back with a 15 foot jump shot from Rory Craddock and went on a 11-2 run of their own to keep the margin at 13 at half time.

Norwood started the third quarter much like the first. Cooper spiked a Kris Davis shot, then made a thunderous dunk that required court announcer Brad Philp to inform the referees that the ring didn't snap back into place. With a 23 point lead, Norwood was set to run away with the game, but West chipped away over the next 10 minutes. An Adam Pearce three reduced it to 17, and when Danny Phillips hit a three with 5 minutes to go in the last quarter, it was down to 13. Rupert Sapwell reintroduced Matthews after a brief respite, and when he finished yet another hanging drive through traffic with a hand off to Keith Krause, the result was certain. The final minutes saw playing time for Jimmy Jones and Stefan Hoffman, who shares a nickname with the bestselling artist in Germany in 1989. Trivia aside, Norwood won the game 90-72.

Todd Matthews, renowned for his Molten embezzlement at the best of times, had 7 steals to go with his already impressive stat line of his 17 points, 10 rebounds and 7 assists. Four other Flames had double figure points, but Cooper was the best of them, with 10 rebounds and five blocks. Blake Truslove was West's highest scorer with 10 points, and he also scraped in for a double double (possibly the most overused stat in CABL reviews to date). Blake's most dramatic effort of the night, however, was as half of the Truslove v Truslove battle post game, in which he was seen in an altercation with the Bearcats' Head Statistician, father Kevan, over a play in which Scott Lampshire threw a pass directly to Blake, mistaking him for a teammate. Kevan's response to Blake's query as to why his stat line didn't include a steal, was "You didn't deserve one". Fair enough too.

Celebrity sightings at the game included former Flame turned rock star Chris Mellow, whose scored a mere 71 points in a Central ABL game a few years back.