Springboks keep tourists off the scent

0 Comments | Sunday Herald, The, Jun 21, 2009 | by Alasdair Reid at ABSA Stadium, Durban

South Africa 26 British Lions 21

Tries - Smit, Brussow. Tries - Croft 2, Phillips.

Penalties - Pienaar 3, F Steyn.

Conversions - Pienaar 2. Conversions - S Jones 3.

YOU could have written the obituaries of the 2009 Lions after 60 minutes of this match. For an hour, they had been out-fought, out- thought, out-muscled and out-played.

And with a quarter of the game remaining they looked out of the Test series as well.

But then something startling happened. South Africa, leading by 19 points, made a raft of ill-advised substitutions that, perversely, seemed only to knock the stuffing out of their own side.

In a reversal of all normal expectations, it was the Lions who were fortified by the changes. Suddenly they had the scent of the Springboks; the game was back on.

The series too? That might be pushing things too far, for in the bars of Durban last night the Springboks' supporters were claiming that their wounds were selfinflicted.

Frankly, they tried to fix something that clearly wasn't broken, and surely they won't make the same mistake in Pretoria next weekend.

Understandably, the Lions' coaches made much of their 14-point comeback in the final quarter, but it was equally understandable that they should try to deflect attention from the fact the tourists had been truly execrable during the earlier stages of the game.

Phil Vickery was blitzed out of the scrum by Tendai" Beast" Mtawarira and it was an overdue act of kindness when he was substituted by Adam Jones in the 45th minute.

Jones took the steam out of the South African scrum, but the Lions had been creaking in other areas. As brilliant as Tom Croft was in the Lions' back row, they never really dealt with the threat of Heinrich Brussow at the breakdown and they also produced a worryingly unconvincing performance in the lineout.

Most troubling of all was the fact that their discipline and composure deserted them at times; just when the crisis demanded cool heads, too many of the Lions lost theirs.

In that regard, it was a poor match for Paul O'Connell, the Lions captain, although the Irishman must deserve credit for girding his troops for their effort in the last 20 minutes. That said, there was also a powerful suspicion around ABSA Stadium that it was Brian O'Driscoll, the 2005 Lions captain, who was doing most of the girding, for he certainly set a fabulous example with the opportunism of his running and offloads.

O'Driscoll had marvellous support in the imposing shape of Jamie Roberts, the Welsh centre who asked the Springboks' defence all sorts of questions. Time and again Roberts hit the gain line with the sort of pace and power that demanded the attention of three South African tacklers and he was desperately unlucky to be brought up just short of the try line on a couple of occasions.

In fact, the Lions out-scored their opponents by three tries to two, and with a little more luck they could have had another three touchdowns.

Ugo Monye and Mike Philips had scores chalked off by the video referee, while Monye was robbed of a try by a brilliant saving tackle by the replacement fly-half Morne Steyn. To be honest, such a tally would have flattered the Lions beyond belief, but it did at least provide a measure of their attacking intent.

Phillips did have the consolation of scoring the Lions' final try, five minutes from the end, but there were serious weaknesses in other aspects of his game. The most striking was the ponderous nature of his service, a contribution so laboured that he sometimes seemed to be taking a longer run-up than Freddie Flintoff before releasing the ball..

At half-time, most barroom selectors would have ditched half the Lions side, and the Scottish players in the squad must have nursed the opinion that this was a good game to miss. John Smit, The Springboks captain, had crashed through Croft's brave but despairing tackle to collect his side's first try after five minutes, and with a missed penalty already against Stephen Jones' name by that point things already looked bleak for the GB& I select.

Ruan Pienaar's 10th minute penalty, awarded against Vickery at a scrum, put the Springboks into double figures shortly afterwards. Again, their score came straight after a Lions' setback - Monye having been denied a try, off a well-worked scrum move, after preposterously long deliberations by the video offi- cial ruled that Jean de Villiers' intervention had prevented the ball going down.

As it was, the curtains seemed to be coming down for the Lions. Frans Steyn, only a partial success at fullback, kicked a long penalty before Croft got the first of his tries in the 23rd minute.

The Englishman's score came after brilliant build-up work by O'Driscoll and Roberts, although his own pace was a massive factor as well.

Yet South Africa kept hammering the Lions in the set-piece and scooping up the rewards. Pienaar clipped over a couple of penalties before the interval to put them 19-7 ahead before spectators used the break to speculate on how high the scoreline could go and whether Vickery would come out for the second half.