By Bruno Visentini
The Coburg Lions have gotten onto the winners list for the second time this season, taking down the Casey Demons in an entertaining 26-point contest at Piranha Park on Saturday, the club’s 500th win at the ground.
The modern VFL landscape is a volatile place for many clubs, and such is the volatility that less than 2 years after winning a VFL flag, Casey came into this match with a less impressive than usual record of 2 wins and 6 losses. This opened the door for Coburg, who came off a bye last week, to hopefully win a second game for the season. As it turned out, that’s exactly what ended up happening.
The Demons had some late outs with Jack Billings and Ben Brown travelling with the senior team to Alice Springs for Sunday’s game against Fremantle. They carried in a much different team to the last time Coburg and Casey locked horns in Round 18 of last season, a game best remembered as Brodie Grundy’s first in the VFL for Casey.
That game also saw James Harmes, Michael Hibberd, Josh Schache and Charlie Spargo among Casey’s best, so without them and a number of other players this game looked like it would be a more evenly matched contest. The game started off close, but mainly due to Casey not capitalising on their opportunities as well as they would’ve liked. Casey did score the first two goals of the game and jumped out to a 15-point lead, but Ingo Dammersmith and Kyle Weightman kicked goals of their own to wrestle back control of the contest.
Another two goals for Casey were the only majors scored for the rest of the term and it put the Demons ahead of Coburg by fifteen points at the first break. While a hard fought contest, Casey looked to be the better side and the scoreboard told the same story.
Though the margin was in Casey’s favour, it certainly wasn’t big enough for the Demons to take their foot off the pedal just yet. A big fightback was needed from the Lions and the task became tougher following an ankle injury to Tom McKenzie who took no further part in the game.
The Lions got off to a great start when Liam Podhajski kicked a goal out of the ruck contest early in the quarter, and Josh D’Intinosante took the margin to less than a goal when he kicked a set shot from a ridiculously tight ankle. If that wasn’t enough though, Liam Serong made his mark on the scoreboard when his long kick towards goal bounced in for Coburg’s third of the quarter and put the Lions in front.
Making the most of the momentum, Flynn Gentile came out of the centre bounce quickly to kick his first of the game and extend Coburg’s lead to nine points. It capped off a fantastic nine-minute run where the Lions scored an accurate 4 goals and zero behinds while not conceding a score.
Casey’s Tom Fullarton kicked a goal to keep his side right in the contest and trail by two points, but a few minutes later Braedyn Gillard converted a set shot to push the Lions back to an eight-point lead. After a couple more behinds, Giacomo Thomas marked in a 2-on-1 situation and played on to run into an open goal and join Coburg’s goalkickers in a dominant quarter, but Flynn Gentile put the exclamation mark on it with his second of the term to put the half time margin at 22 points.
Gentile had a remarkable first half with his two goals coming from a whopping 25 disposals to be the standout player thus far. As a team though, Coburg were just as dominant, leading every major statistical category except tackles. In the second term alone, the Lions scored 45 points and only conceded 8 points which was a result of seizing the opportunities that came by and not being wasteful.
It was up to the team to not get complacent and instead prove that this quarter wasn’t a flash in the pan, but Casey would’ve been just as determined to come out with a bang in the second half. Sure enough, the Demons drew first blood with a goal to Oliver Sestan early on, but Hugo Bromell kicked the next goal after some time to keep Coburg’s lead safe. Casey eventually kicked the next two goals and the margin was brought down to just 9 points, the closest the game had been in over a quarter of footy.
Needing something big, Liam Podhajski won a free kick close to goal and converted an easy set shot to bring back some breathing room. Kyle Weightman stepped up to kick a set shot for his second of the game and followed it up soon after with his kick on the run narrowly avoiding a Casey defender before rolling through for his third of the game. Tom Fullarton kicked his second of the day for the visitors to keep them in it, but the three quarter time siren rang with the ball in Liam Podhajski’s hands almost 50 metres out from goal.
His kick after the siren made it five straight goals for Coburg in the quarter and set up a big final quarter with the Lions leading by 27 points at the break, a slight increase from half time which was about right given the third term was more of an arm wrestle than the second.
Casey once again kicked the first goal of the quarter, through 2023 draftee Koltyn Tholstrup who gave it to the Coburg fans while celebrating. When Lachlan Walker kicked the next goal for Coburg though, the fans gave it right back to Tholstrup given their team was up by 26 points. Another goal would’ve been very valuable for the Lions, but Casey’s defensive pressure saw Coburg score four consecutive behinds.
Quite some time passed between goals which meant Coburg were still comfortably ahead with not a whole heap of time to play, but Casey’s Caleb Lewis kicked a goal to perhaps give the Demons the faintest of chances. However small that chance was though, it was quashed when Lions skipper Jesse Corigliano booted a rare goal with a slick set shot that saw his teammates and fans alike into raptures with a win all but sealed.
Casey went on to kick the last goal of the match, but it didn’t matter as the Lions walked away winners with the scores 16.12 (108) to 12.10 (82). Unsurprisingly Flynn Gentile was voted Lion of the Round with the absurd stat line of 43 disposals, 2 goals and 11 clearances that went a long way to securing the result. Liam Podhajski was a standout in his first game of the season notching up 30 hitouts, 16 disposals and an equal team-high 3 goals for the day, while Joel Trudgeon (33 disposals, 7 clearances, 5 tackles) and Donovan Toohey (29 disposals, 7 marks) found plenty of the footy themselves.
The win sees Coburg momentarily climb to 18th on the ladder, doing enough to overtake Casey on percentage, and the Lions could stay there depending on the result of the Carlton and Northern Bullants match. The Lions will take on North Melbourne at Arden Street Oval next Saturday with the hopes of making it two in a row and continuing to climb up the ladder.
