Lions go down to seven time champions

The saying in sport is that you can’t buy experience. The Lions went down to seven times Super Rugby champions and only have themselves to blame. Opportunities came begging, but the lack of taking the correct decisions on field and handling errors saw the local franchise losing their winning ways in front of their home crowd.

The Lions lost 7-28 to the crusaders in a vital Vodacom Super Rugby match on Saturday April 5 at Ellis Park.

It was a disappointing weekend for South Africa’s Vodacom Super Rugby franchises, with the best result among the four teams that took to the field being a 43-43 draw by the Toyota Cheetahs.

The Vodacom Bulls faced the Hurricanes in Napier on Saturday in their first tour game with the hope of becoming the first domestic franchise to win in the Antipodes this season, but penalties conceded at crucial times allowed the hosts to come away with a 25-20 victory.

At Ellis Park, the Lions produced a competitive first-half performance against the Crusaders to trail only 6-0 after 40 minutes, but the home side battled to shut out their opposition in the second half.

The Toyota Cheetahs, meanwhile, built up an encouraging 34-10 half-time lead against New Zealand conference leaders and defending champions, the Chiefs, in Bloemfontein, but they allowed the visitors to fight back strongly after the break and had to settle for a 43-43 draw.

In the last match of the weekend, the DHL Stormers’ woes continued in their first home game after their Australasian tour, as they suffered their fifth back-to-back defeat after going down 22-11 against the Waratahs in a physical encounter at DHL Newlands.

The Cell C Sharks, meanwhile, enjoyed a bye, and despite this retained the top spot on the log. They are now two points ahead of Australian conference leaders, the Brumbies, and three points clear of the Chiefs and Waratahs.

Lions 7 (0) Crusaders 28 (6)

The Lions’ inability to convert their try-scoring opportunities into points against the Crusaders came at a high price as it cost the side a possible fifth victory of the season.

The home side produced a competitive first-half performance, in which they showed courage on attack and defence and did well to contain the Crusaders.

Such was the competitiveness of the first half the only points scored were two penalties by Crusaders flyhalf Colin Slade in the 10th and 14th minutes respectively.

The Lions continued this impressive attacking display in the second half, but unfortunately so did the mistakes at vital moments, which left them with little to show for these efforts on the scoreboard except for a converted try by centre Lionel Mapoe.

In stark contrast the Crusaders capitalised on three of their attacking opportunities and earned the rewards with captain and centre Ryan Crotty crossing the tryline for their first-five pointer in the 45th minute. A strong finish for the visitors with two tries in the last 10 minutes inflated their score to 28-7, but the Lions will take comfort from the fact that they denied the tourists a bonus point for four tries.

The Lions’ defeat marked their fifth successive loss against the Crusaders since 2008, and this was also the first time since then that they scored less than 10 points against the Christchurch side.

The loss also kept the team’s disappointing record of only one win against the Crusaders at home since 2006 intact.

Other results – Round 8:

Highlanders 33 – 30 Rebels (Dunedin)

Brumbies 26 – 9 Blues (Canberra)

Reds 29 – 32 Force (Brisbane)