By Daniel Atamian
It was a clash of Melbourne’s big cats for a Sunday afternoon VFL match up down at Piranha Park that saw formerly aligned clubs; the Richmond Tigers and the Coburg Lions, compete in the fourth annual Vicki Cleary Day match.
The first quarter saw the Lions come out of the gates hard and fast with mounting pressure on the unsuspecting Tigers, allowing the Lions to strike first off with a Josh D’Intinosante goal to open up the games scoring account. The Tigers would look dangerous a number of times throughout the first quarter having multiple scoring opportunities to hit the scoreboard with a major of their own but couldn’t convert, Flynn Gentile would give the “Burgers” their second major score late in the first term to extend their lead, Ivan Soldo would have the last kick with a set shot on the siren to give the Tiges their first major of the day but would ultimately hit the post for a behind.
Going into the second quarter The Lions started much like the first by drawing first blood with the opening two goals coming from with Brayden Gillard and D’Intinosante scoring in the first and fourth minute marks. Nathan Boucher joined the goal kicking party with the Lions third major following the Tigers opener from Jason Castagna. It would be few and far between goals; after Jake Aarts responded back for the Tigs after Boucher’s goal, with both sides six behind; three a piece, until Richmond kicked the final two goals of the first half to take the lead going into the break.
Third term of the game would be the turning point for the Yellow and Black as they would go on to dominate the quarter and turn the game in their favour outscoring the Burgs six goals to two, struggling to maintain clear possession or play the ball to their advantage like Richmond seemed to be able to do at a constant, despite having highflying highlights from both Mitch Podhajski & D’Intinosante being unable to swing the momentum back to the Lions way.
Going into the final quarter Richmond would continue their onslaught of goals to further extend their grasp on the lead, controlling the pace and passage of play with much more polish when in possession of the ball and showing more accuracy when having a shot at goal than that of Coburg resulting in a five goal haul to add to and round out their goals tally. Despite their efforts to continue to mount a comeback and reduce the Tigers lead with the Lions only majors in the final term coming from Gillard and Edyn Sibbald; from a set shot after the siren, to add to the Burgs game total goal count and his second for the day.
SCORES:
COB: 2.1.13 | 3.6.24 | 5.8.38 | 7.10.52
RIC: 0.3.3 | 4.7.31 | 10.11.71 | 15.14.104
Goals:(2) J. D’Intinosante, E. Sibbald, (1) N. Boucher, F. Gentile & B. Gillard
Catch more Lions action this week for our Round 14 match:
Saturday 25 June vs Carlton VFL at 5:05pm (Away- Ikon Park)
#WeAreCoburg
