The Coburg Lions have narrowly gone down for the second consecutive week, by 10 points to a resilient Port Melbourne outfit.
Port managed to weather a late Coburg assault, led by Ahmed Saad who kicked the last 3 goals for the game to bring the margin to four points, before Toby Pinwill kicked the sealer late to end the comeback.
The Lions who were slow to start were led by Saad, who was well serviced by Lachlan Johns (10 clearances), Ozgur Usyal (28 possessions) and Nathan Thomas (30 possessions).
The Senior lions start mimicked that of the development side with Lech Featherstone goaling within the opening minute of the game, as Coburg took an early lead.
Port Melbourne, however, applied the screws as the wind picked up at North Port Oval, scoring the next three goals consecutive.
It took something special from the pocket from Ahmed Saad to get the Lions back on the board, the quarter time margin 11 points.
The rain set in to begin the second quarter, as Port booted two unanswered, before a string of quick handballs resulted in a Younan goal.
Good lead up play from Mark Orr and Ahmed Saad ended with Peter McEvoy converting, and despite some more Saad magic the Lions couldn’t reduce the quarter time margin, going in at the half down by 18 points.
The opposition struck the first blow of the third quarter, as they ramped up the pressure around the ground, forcing turnovers and sloppy use of the ball by hand.
Ahmed Saad was again the saviour at the other end keeping Coburg in check, however, it simply wasn’t enough, as Port Melbourne danced ahead by 28 points at the last break.
Lech Featherstone again goaled in the opening minutes, this time to start the last, as birthday boy Robbie Fox found the score board to reduce the margin within three goals, giving Coburg a late sniff.
Ahmed Saad converted goals four, five and six consecutively to peg back the Port lead to only four points with a few minutes to play.
Any semblance of a Coburg comeback was squashed with a late opposition goal, the final margin 10 points.
Both our Senior and Development sides return to Piranha Park next week (April 23rd) to take on the Box Hill Hawks
Best: T.Goodwin, A.Saad, L.Johns, R.Bamblett, M.Mattingly, D.Tarczon
Goals: A.Saad 6, L.Featherstone 2, D.Younan, P.McEvoy, R.Fox
