Hipwood steals the show

WITH seven minutes remaining in the third term, Melbourne held a nine-point buffer and looked well placed to cause an upset on the road.

But Eric Hipwood had other ideas.

The Lions’ key forward put together an unstoppable 15 minutes of footy, booting five goals to single-handedly carry his side to victory.

The numbers

DISPOSALS: Oliver 36, Salem 32, Viney 28, Harmes 27, Jones 23, Brayshaw 22, Petracca 21

GOALS: Hannan, Petracca 2, Fritsch, Hunt, Lockhart, May, McDonald, Viney, Weideman

Fast-paced madness

The ball was pinging up and down the Gabba on Sunday afternoon, as both sides played a free-flowing brand of footy, with mistakes aplenty.

Melbourne had 77 turnovers (12 more than the Lions), handing back the ball regularly throughout the uncontested game.

It was an unpredictable contest early, as both sides went goal for goal, with the margin failing to exceed 10 points until a Hipwood major on three quarter-time.

Wasteful Lions

The Demons were fighting hard throughout the first half, but a wayward Brisbane forward line ultimately kept the red and blue in the match.

The home side managed just four goals from their 15 scoring shots to the main break, handing Melbourne an unlikely six-point lead.

Costly fumbles

A game of footy never comes down to one or two moments, with plenty of factors throughout the day influencing the result, but Christian Petracca’s fumble and Tom McDonald’s dropped mark both caused momentum shifts.

Both incidents came in the third quarter and allowed the opposition to go end-to-end, costing Melbourne a couple of certain goals.

Gawny’s ankle

Max Gawn gave his ankle a significant tweak in the second quarter, landing awkwardly in a marking contest with former Demon Stef Martin.

The Dees’ ruckman returned to the field but was hampered by the injury as Martin run amuck with 33 hit outs and 21 disposals.

Smashed in the centre

Brisbane benefited from Martin’s dominance in the middle and absolutely thumped the Demons out of the centre.

In a one-sided effort, the Lions had a whopping 20 centre clearances to six and beat the Dees up in the contested area of the game.

Melbourne couldn’t put a stop to the opposition stars, with Lachie Neale (38 disposals), Jarryd Lyons (33 disposals and one goal) and Dayne Zorko (31 disposals and three goals) proving too good.

Lions run away

The Lions looked threatening for much of the game and finally clicked in the last term, running away with a comfortable 33-point win.

Although the margin was a manageable 14 points at the final change, the Dees never looked like pegging it back, proving too slow for a young Brisbane outfit.

A word from Goody

“We got beaten in the areas we really value,” Simon Goodwin told Melbourne Media post-game.

“We got smashed in the midfield. We tried a few things in there, but to lose centre bounces the way we did and to lose clearances gave them a lot of territory in the game, which made it a really hard game to play for us.”

Looking ahead

Round 16 v Carlton @ MCG – Sunday, 6 July, 1:10pm AEST

Carlton is no longer an easy-beat, putting together some strong form in recent weeks under caretaker coach David Teague.

The Blues are fresh off a win against Fremantle and will mount a serious challenge next Sunday afternoon.