Sandringham's finals chances appear over following a heavy 70-point loss at the hands of Richmond at Punt Road Oval, placing the Zebras one game outside the eight and a poor percentage.

Despite kicking the first goal of the match, the Zebras struggled to get any ascendancy and allowed the Tigers to dominate proceedings for most of the afternoon.

In a must-win game, it was a disappointing result by the Zebras who were still in the game when they only trailed by 21 points at quarter time.

The damage was done after the first break with the home side putting on a seven-goal second term and the first four goals of the quarter to stun the Zebras by half time.

Richmond didn’t take their foot off the pedal after the main break, outscoring Sandringham with a ten-goal second half leading to an impressive victory.

Standout Zebras

Midfielder Jack Lonie was a clear standout on a bad day for Sandringham, finishing with 33 disposals and two goals to further enhance his chances for an AFL recall.

Nick O’Kearney was another to impress with 30 disposals in what has been a very consistent VFL campaign through the midfield.

The next challenge

Sandringham will travel to Mars Stadium next Saturday to tackle North Ballarat in the last game of their season, with an opportunity to finish the year strongly despite missing out on this year’s VFL finals series.