Round 2 – Melbourne V Brisbane
Depleted Dees Unable To Tame Lions
Liam Chambers
Lion’s stamp their authority on the game
Last week’s away win against Geelong was a hard fought contest. Round 2 promised to be an even more difficult task as we prepared to take on the 2023 Premiers, without Tayla Harris who’s injury now looks to be season ending.
As if that wasn’t enough, we have also lost, arguably one of our most important players, to injury. Lauren Pearce has been pivotal to Melbourne’s success over the years and the fact that she was injured during training only makes it an even more bitter pill to swallow.
Brisbane was firing on all cylinders from the opening siren, making Gabrielle Colvin work hard in defence. Eventually the Lions broke through when Dakota Davidson took an uncontested mark in the square, before turning to kick the first major.
After the goal, Brisbane continued to dominate play, well set up, winning the ground ball more often and marking cleaner.
All that pressure finally paid off when Taylor Smith’s wind assisted set shot from just outside 50 sailed towards goal, landing in the square before bouncing over the line for Brisbane’s second.
Despite another late surge from the Lion’s, Melbourne manage to hold off their opponents, to only trail by ten points at quarter time.
Ferocious quarter of play but no goals
The Demons started well in the second term but Brisbane had the answers and before long were again looking threatening going forward.
The Lions were also dominating territory and taking some impressive intercept marks to deny Melbourne the chance to build any momentum. Just as Brisbane appeared to have set up camp in their forward half, Melbourne finally broke free and made several incursions inside 50. Unfortunately the Lions’ defence held strong before launching a counter attack.
Incredibly, despite a hard fought game, it was only a one point quarter, with neither side able to create a realistic goal scoring chance.
Melbourne get themselves back in the game
With the third term looking to be travelling the same way as the previous one, Brisbane finally broke the goal drought when Ruby Svarc marked the ball in the pocket before playing on. Unfortunately, despite disposing of the ball incorrectly, she was awarded a free kick for what was deemed to be a lingering tackle. Her set shot from directly in front went through, and the visitors had a sixteen point advantage.
It took almost a full three quarters of footy but Melbourne’s first goal finally eventuated when debutante Alyssia Pisano took an uncontested mark in front of goal, having also been instrumental in the process that set up the shot. A star in the making no doubt, the small forward was spot on with her kicking.
Lions prove too difficult to chase down
The Dees started the last term trailing by two goals; approximately where they’d been for most of the afternoon. We started enthusiastically, with Maeve Chaplin involved in two strong tackles in the opening minute; the latter enabling Ryleigh Wotherspoon to run and have a shot on goal. Unfortunately the kick was just short of the goal line.
As the quarter wore on, it looked like goals would again be in short supply. Then the ever dangerous Dakota Davidson took a contested mark inside 50. The subsequent 35m set shot was on target.
With only ten minutes remaining, the prospect of a Demon victory was looking increasingly slim. When Davidson had another set shot opportunity a minute later, she made sure of the difficult kick from deep in the pocket.
The Dees now required four goals in eight minutes in order to draw level with the Lions. It appeared that the laws of probability were not in our favour.
Kate Hore, who was instrumental in Melbourne’s win last week had been unable to get a good look at the goal until five minutes from full time. That was all she needed though and made the most of the opportunity by launching from 40m to bounce the ball across the line.
Unfortunately there were no more goals for the Dees but they did deny Brisbane any further opportunities to add to their tally.
Next week it’s another high pressure game against last year’s runners up, North Melbourne. The Roos beat Brisbane by a record margin in Round 1, so will be confident of taking another high profile scalp when we play them at Casey fields. We relish the underdog tag though and should be confident of causing an upset.
Go the Mighty Dees!!!