The Coburg Lions have gone down to a strong Sandringham Zebras outfit at Piranha Park.
Trailing from siren to siren, the Seniors never looked in the game with Sandringham starving the Lions of the ball, having almost 70 more kicks and 90 more disposals.
Luke Ryan again proved his credentials (29 disposals and 9 marks), while Mark Orr continued his re-invention down back.
Young Zak Wunyhm (24 disposals and 5 clearances) continues to impress in the middle of the ground and Ahmed Saad extended his Frosty Miller medal lead booting 3 goals.
Both sides looked threatening early, Coburg unable to land a blow from multiple entries, while the Zebras looked dangerous when moving the ball by foot out of the defensive fifty.
Some undisciplined play saw Sandringham take the early 13 point advantage in perfect conditions for football.
The visitors continued to dominate through the centre of Piranha Park, spreading hard and capitalising on all opportunities to lead by 25 at the first change.
Sandringham piled on another two goals to begin the second before Ahmed Saad finally put Coburg on the board after almost 40 minutes of football.
Better ball movement and higher contested ball numbers had Coburg back into the contest mid-way through the quarter, despite the purple patch, Sandringham managed to scrape a goal to have them 28 points up at half time.
Again Sandy would be the better starting of the two sides, capitalising on a 50 meter penalty, pushing the margin out to 34.
Saad again the saviour, slotting goal number 3, to keep Coburg’s head above water, sparking the Lions into a string of inside fifties, poor conversion rate would have Sandy leading by 29 points at three quarter time.
TAC Cup leading goal kicker Karl Brown kicked his first VFL major to counter an earlier back line blunder, bringing the margin within five goals.
The Zebras then showed why they were sitting in the VFL top four, putting the foot down, ensuring a Coburg comeback was not on the cards. Five final quarter goals, pushing the final margin to 49 points.
Both the Senior and Development sides travel to Burbank Oval next Sunday (17th July) to take on Williamstown.
Goals: Saad, 3 Younan, Brown
Best: L. Ryan, M. Orr, Z. Wunyhm, B. Allan, A. Saad, G. McDonagh
