Lions blow chance to end Currie Cup drought against Griquas

The Lions threw away a huge chance to end their lengthy losing streak in the Currie Cup, blowing it in the end as Griquas snuck a 23-17 win at Wits on Thursday.

The Lions, bolstered by a number of United Rugby Championship reinforcements, dominated the match for large parts but were unable to take their chances, leading to Griquas scoring a try on the full-time hooter to win the match.

Lions captain Andre Warner was bitterly disappointed with the result, as they slipped to their eighth consecutive defeat in the competition.

“We are very disappointed. We showed good effort, but still not good enough because we needed the victory. Hats off to the Griquas, they came a long way from Kimberley, so this was a good win for them,” said Warner.

“Small moments are costing us and our reaction is poor. We were in that game, we just didn’t finish it off at the end. We had our chances and didn’t take them, but they took their chances.

“We put some good phases together, our lineouts were good, scrums were good, actually our set-piece as a whole was good and we scored some good tries but soft moments cost us the game.”

In the match the Griquas took their chances to move into a 13-0 lead after 30 minutes thanks to the boot of flyhalf George Whitehead who slotted two penalties and a conversion, while they scored a try against the run of play.

The try came in the 20th minute during a big spell of dominance from the home side, camping in the Griquas 22m, when man of the match Sango Xamlashe made the vital steal.

Outside centre Xamlashe ripped the ball from a Lions players hands and broke upfield, offloading to flying right wing Munier Hartzenberg to canter in a converted try under the posts.

The Lions had refused to go for poles in the opening 30 minutes despite a slew of penalties, but finally did in the last 10 as fullback Tiaan Swanepoel missed a tough penalty in the 32nd minute, but landed one in the 34th, making it 13-3 at halftime.

The second half was then again dominated by the Lions, with the Griquas also penalised with yellow cards to inside centre Zander du Plessis and Whitehead, but they still did enough to win.

Whitehead knocked over a 45th minute penalty, before the Lions again set-up camp in the Griquas 22m, with du Plessis then sent to the bin for a professional foul on Warner.

The Lions finally made their dominance count with Swanepoel going over in the 60th minute after space was created in the left hand corner and then scored again in the 73rd as right wing Boldwin Hansen collected Fred Zeilinga’s grubber to dot down, giving the Lions the lead 17-16.

But the Griquas had a never say die attitude and despite du Plessis missing a late long range penalty they then punished Swanepoel’s first mistake of the match.

Collecting the ball after the miss, Swanepoel decided he would rather kick it downfield than dot down for the 22m drop out, but he didn’t find touch allowing the Griquas to counter and score through replacement Ashlon Davids.

Scorers

Lions – Tries: Tiaan Swanepoel, Boldwin Hansen. Conversions: Swanepoel (2). Penalty: Swanepoel

Griquas – Tries: Munier Hatzenberg, Ashlon Davids. Conversions: George Whitehead (2). Penalties: Whitehead (3)