Poor goal kicking returned to rob the Brisbane Lions the chance of a second half comeback against Melbourne at the MCG on Sunday.
The Lions trailed by 44 points heading into time-on of the second quarter. They went on to kick the next three goals but missed opportunities on goal hurt the visitors who fell away to a 63-point loss.
“We talked a lot to our group about persisting,” Assistant Coach Murray Davis told the Vero Coaches Wrap.
(Slide taken from Vero Coaches Wrap Video above)
“I’ve highlighted (above slide) a goal to Jack Watts which was 6.24 minutes to go in the second quarter. You’ll see Jack Watts go back and kick that goal which takes Melbourne to 66 points.
“At that stage, as a Club and as a playing group we have some decisions to make and we really wanted the players to buy into persisting and not giving up.”
Tom Bell’s three goals between time-on and the opening minutes of the 3rd term gave the Lions a sniff but inaccuracy in front of the goals was the Lions’ ultimate undoing.
“It started with Tom Bell, he kicked three goals – we really felt as coaches we were starting to get some momentum and started to get ourselves back in the game.
(Slide taken from Vero Coaches Wrap Video - shows that the momentum was on our side, as well as showing that we stopped Melbourne from scoring for a long period)
“Unfortunately though we had the next three shots on goal and we kicked behinds. We talk a lot about pressure and tackling pressure but there’s no greater pressure than scoreboard pressure and we weren’t able to bring that through missed opportunities.
“We were really happy with the persistence shown in the playing group but we’re disappointed that we weren’t able to get the reward.
“That really hurt because we showed a lot of character, I think, to get ourselves back into the game.”
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