Tara Murray
The top of the table clash in the Essendon District Football League division 2 competition lived up to expectations, with Taylors Lakes winning a thriller.
Taylors Lakes and Burnside Heights entered the clash on the back of their first losses for the season, but it took nothing away from the clash.
The Bears jumped out to an early lead before the Lions slowly worked back into the game. Nothing separated the two teams for most of the day.
The Lions took a small lead into three quarter time and held that throughout the last quarter.
The Bears had a long shot to take the lead in the last minute but weren’t able to convert, with the Lions holding on to win, 11.5 (71)-10.7 (67).
Lions coach Steve Burns said it was a really good game of football.
“It was what we expected,” he said. “We got off to a bad start and they kicked the first five goals of the game.
“We managed to get back into the game and it was a cracking game of footy. We stuck to the structures and I was proud of the coaching group and players, they didn’t panic and we started to play our game.”
Burns said they managed to start winning the ball around the contest which was what turned the game back in their favour.
He said once the midfield got into the game they started to get the ball heading into their forward line.
“We learned a lot from watching the week before when they lost to Westy [Westmeadows],” Burns said.
“We got a bit of a run on the outside.”
The Lions kicked the first goal of the final quarter to give them a little bit of breathing space.
Burns said they started to shift their game plan to scenario sort of things and managed to hold on.
Luke Nappi kicked three goals for the Lions.
Burns said he was impressed with young ruck Daniel Klonowski, who stepped up and really provided a contest.
Mitch Jones, Daniel DeVito, Ethan Caffari, Darby Lalor and Aaron Vendramini were other standouts.
“We didn’t have a bad player,” Burns said.
Antonio Vitalone, Tyson Iglesias and Lachlan Evans were named the Bears best.
The win was made even more pleasing for the Lions with the side missing eight players out of their best 22.
He said they would likely get a number of those players back, including Chris Vulic and Lachlan Rayner after their bye in two weeks.
“The pleasing thing is all three sides are sitting on top which is really good for the footy club,” he said.
“There’s still a lot of hard work to be done but with the amount of injuries we’ve got, we’ve still been able to be competitive in all three grades.”
The Lions this week face bottom side East Sunbury before a bye the following week.
Burnside Heights host Coburg Districts in a twilight game.
