17 June
Kings shake up the Lions
The British & Irish Lions beat the Southern Kings from the Eastern Cape 20 – 8 Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium in Port Elizabeth on Sunday , but the Lions definitely did not have it all their own way.
In a match marking the inauguration of a stadium named after South Africa’s favourite son and commemorating a momentous juncture in the country’s history the rag-tag Kings played with appropriate passion and spirit.
The Kings might have been drawn from all corners of the country, indeed from the world, and had little time to prepare but they responded to the gauntlet thrown down by the Lions, when they named a macro pack in their effort to grind out a sixth successive win, with gusto.
In the end the tourists succeeded, but the Kings, before the biggest crowd of the tour (some 35 800), would have shaken the Lions’ confidence ahead of Saturday’s first test in Durban.
There was an edginess reminiscent of the old days at Boet Erasmus Stadium as blood flowed and players went down bruised as the Kings climbed in with disregard to their own physical well-being.
Gordon D’Arcy was flattened by Frikkie Welsh in the 3rd minute, leaving the tackled man shaken and the tackler bleeding, a cut appeared on the cheek of Nathan Hines and the tourists were forced to make two replacements within 12 minutes with prop Adam Jones coming on for Euan Murray and Ronan O’Gara substituting James Hook.
The Kings themselves lost prop Ruan Vermeulen (replaced by Deon Greyling) and one of their stars, scrumhalf Francois Hougaard, limped off just after the re-start to be replaced by Josh Fowles.
The Lions at times were a severely shaken outfit as certain of their individuals suffered knocks to their reputations and, it has to be said, they had the better of a number of contentious rulings by Welsh referee Nigel Owens.
The Kings incurred two yellow cards – shown to Jaco van der Westhuyzen and Ross Skeate – and while the former was for a clearly dangerous tackle and the latter for hands in after numerous warnings one has to question how the Lions escaped censure for consistent and similar offences.
Owens also awarded the Lions a most questionable penalty try in the 69th minute. The Lions had the shove on the Kings at scrum time throughout and they certainly had them in reverse on this occasion but they had clearly lost control of the ball, it popped out the side, and Fowles seemed within his rights to play it.
Although the South Africans were perhaps overly triumphal as they exulted in their machoism the antagonistic temper of the game does not augur well for the mood in the first test.
The Lions have committed themselves to being physical in the collisions but their technique causes both them and their opponents frustration. The Lions tend to play down and onto the ball at the breakdown whereas southern hemisphere interpretations mean South African sides play up and over it.
In addition the tourists just do not have a stocky ball-winner among their loose forwards capable of the quick on-you-feet steal and Heinrich Brüssow’s belated selection might turn out to be a big plus for the Springboks.
In fact, given the problems the Lions have had in this area it would not be too far-fetched to suggest they consider playing scrumhalf Mike Phillips as their breakaway with Andy Ellis at scrumhalf.
Tuesday’s match was tied up 3-3 at halftime and it was only when the Lions eschewed their keep-the-ball-in-hand approach in the second half with O’Gara starting to kick for position that the tourists gained the ascendancy.
O’Gara gave the Lions the lead with a penalty in the 44th minute but they did not score their first try until the 50th when the change of tactics paid dividends.
O’Gara sent a neatly-weighted cross-kick to the corner for Ugo Monye to chase and, after a blur of contact, the TMO was required to adjudge that a try had been scored. The ball beat Monye’s marker Matt Turner, bouncing off his shoulder, and in the scramble to get to it the Lions wing was deemed to have made a legal touch-down.
O’Gara’s sideline conversion was spot-on, thanks to the space-ship structure of the Windy City’s wonderful new landmark blocking the tempest raging over the rest of Port Elizabeth, to give the Lions a 13-3 lead.
The appearance on the field of Mzwandile Stick, a genuine Eastern Cape boy, sparked the first, um, Humewood Wave? in the new stadium but Skeate’s sin-binning soon afterwards meant the momentum was with the Lions.
Tempers were becoming frayed, some of the exchanges bordered on being malicious and the Kings thought it was downright pernicious of Nigel Owens to pin them with a penalty try.
O’Gara’s conversion made it 20-8 as the last 10 minutes arrived but, spurred by the rising tide of support in the crowd, the Kings went for broke.
Jaco van der Westhuyzen’s sharp blindside break, thanks to Frikkie Welsh coming over from the open-side to work him into space, had the Lions stretched to the limit. Joe Worsley got back to stop Van der Westhuyzen and Donncha O’Callaghan brought off a try-saving tackle on the other Jaco, Engels, but the Kings had won a beachhead on the Lions’ line.
And it was from the staging point of the next scrum that Sevens Springbok Mpho Mbiyozo sealed a man-of-the-match performance with a try that the Eastern Cape fans celebrated like a winning one. Luke Fitzgerald had tackled Tiger Mangweni without ball as Darron Nel passed to him (would there have been a penalty try?) as he came up from the back but Mbiyozo, who had been outstanding throughout, snapped it up to score.
Van der Westhuyzen’s conversion missed to make the final tally 8-20 but it mattered not – the Lions had their sixth successive win but the moral victory belonged to the Southern Kings.
Scorers were:
Southern Kings (3) : Try by Mpho Mbiyozo (71 min). Jaco van der Westhuyzen kicked a penalty.
Lions (3) 20: Try by Ugo Monye (50 min), Penalty Try (69 min). Ronan O’Gara kicked two penalties and two conversions.
Source: sarugby.co.za
Pic: rugby365.com
