This was a game that never should have been this close. South Africa steamrolled the British for an hour then replaced the players who were driving the rig, killing all their momentum and when they took Smit (the captain) off every Springbok fan had their hearts in their throats as the final whistle was blown. Tactically from the coaching point of view (and they admit this) it was not a great performance.
The game seemed to be sown up with the Springboks 19 point ahead. Most of these points coming from the near perfect boot of Ruan Pienaar who showed everyone that his kicking game is world class, he even seemed to surprise the tourists, who were expected him to be rusty and wayward. The SA forwards climbed in early on and the pressure showed when Vickery, who was being tortured in the scrums by Tendai “the beast” Mtawariwa, continually infringed at the set piece. The beast had an awesome game and showed the world that the South African scrum is not to be taken lightly.
Staying with the forwards, it was O'Connell's best performance on tour both as a player and as a captain. After SA made too many substitutions too early he sniffed his chance and got his boys going. The chief destroyer being Jaimie Roberts who was given too much room all afternoon. It must be said however that for their first try the apparently injured Adrian Jacobs showed no effort in what should have been a regulation tackle and saved the home side a little embarrassment. In fact the lions third try came from another piece of shocking defending by Andries Bekker; these guys have been out of rugby for quite some time and it definitely showed. The smart choice would be to swap Jaque Fourie for Jacobs as he posses an all round better game and is probably more equipped to deal with the size of Roberts. Tommy Bowe, who was the talk of the town a week ago was no where to be seen, being outshone by Habbana who got through an enormous amount of defensive work.
The South Africans kicked everything and we never got a chance to see what the abckline could do, wit all respect to the Lions, this will not suffice in a competition like the Tri-nations, where the competition will punish you if you give them 60% possession, like the boks gave the Lions today.
The Lions showed great heart to fight back and will take many positives out of the loss, however it is the Springboks who will have shaken off the rust and come out twice as good in the next game (which is also at altitude).
Pierre Spies never lived up to Superman hype, but in a game where there was almost no running attack from the Boks who would ever expect Spies to feature; a player like Schalk Burger was sorely missed, as the tight grafting and defensive game is his bread and butter.
And so we look forward to next weekend at Loftus the home of the Super 14 champions. If the Boks win they win the series, if the Lions win, we have one helluva “final” the next Saturday at Ellis Park. Whom ever you support, next week is going to be huge, so please don't miss it!
sgr
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