By Nathan Spicer
Coburg 15.10.100 recorded a strong victory over Essendon 3.6.24 in their first win of the pre-season overnight down at The Hangar.
Senior Coach Andrew Sturgess was very pleased with the result “As much as it’s a practice game you also want to win, we thought that with the way our guys carried out our planning and then the way they executed what the plans were we couldn’t be happier.”
When asked about the great defensive performance Sturg’s reply was “We had a pretty clear focus on how we wanted to defend tonight in line with how Essendon like to move the ball and again I think we just executed what our game plan was really well.”
Coburg started the game on top and never looked like being challenged. Led by Charlie Thompson and Macgregor Cameron early on the Lions were able to build a 21-point leading heading into the first break.
Cameron kicked the first goal of the game slotting one from the boundary 45 meters out. His goal was followed by majors to Alex Lukic and Josh D’Intinosante.
JD would open the second quarter with a goal snapping from 20 out before Essendon finally kicked their first midway through the quarter. From there though it was all Coburg, Silvestro would hit straight back.
New recruits Harry Andronaco and Flynn Gentile would kick the next two with Gentile bursting through the middle from a centre clearance to kick a beautiful goal on the run. Dylan Thomas would round out the half with a goal on the siren to make the score Essendon 1.2.8 to Coburg 8.5.53.
The third quarter would be much of the same, fellow new recruit Josh Kemp would rove and goal benefiting from some great work from an impressive Nathan Boucher out of the centre. Goal of the night went to Luke Nelson who had four bounces down the far wing and finished the job from 40 meters out on the run.
The intensity died down a bit in the last quarter and the Lions rounded out a very impressive 76-point win.
Thompson, Boucher and Maibaum were all amongst the best, but it was the young new recruits who really stole the show. Former Calder Cannons products Josh Kemp, Harry Andracano and Flynn Gentile were the best of these.
Kemp would end up with two majors and showed flashes of his athletic prowess with a couple of high leaps. Gentile had a run through the middle and looked right at home all night he would also end up with two goals.
With so many new faces putting in good performances first selection night will be interesting Coach Sturgess elaborated “It’s providing some headaches and I said to the guys tonight it’s going to be really hard to pick a team come first game.”
“Guys like Kempy who was the last one on our list Dylan Thomas and Lukic we’ve got a number of guys who have joined our program who are putting their hand up and making it hard for guys who have been here for a couple seasons now,” said Sturgess.
JD seemed to be back to his mercurial self when asked about him Sturg replied “He’s a ripper, he didn’t have much luck last year he was done after round 3 with his elbow to see him fit and firing and running on top of the ground, impacting the scoreboard and his pressure is elite so I’m really excited to see what he can do this year.”
The Lions have their final pre-season hit out next Friday night 7.00PM against Werribee at Highgate Reserve.
