Lions’ date with destiny

PRESSURE: COMMIES SLOTS DIFFICULT KICK TO BREAK SHARKS’ HEARTS

Hosts’ reward is a semifinal against the Hurricanes.

Lions captain Jaco Kriel admitted he was in two minds before the nerve-wracking final minutes in their Super Rugby quarterfinal against the Sharks at Ellis Park on Saturday.

Wing Ruan Combrinck’s 58-metre penalty in the 78th minute secured a tight 23-21 win for the hosts, setting up a home semifinal against the Hurricanes this weekend.

“I had my doubts after he missed his first kick and we have a thing where we also look at the side for advice because the coach speaks to JP (Ferreira, defence coach) and Cash (van Rooyen, conditioning coach) and they were pointing at the line,” Kriel said.

“But Commies already had the tee in his hand so I said to him, ‘Commies, this is winning or losing it’, and he was cramping with the previous kick so I don’t know if that was just an excuse,” the skipper added with a chuckle.

Meanwhile, Lions coach Johan Ackermann expressed his sympathies with Sharks counterpart Robert du Preez who said he could not comment on “poor official decisions”, referring to referee Marius van der Westhuizen whose last choice in the dying seconds resulted in a Lions turnover with the Sharks in a strong attacking position.

“If I had lost I probably also would’ve been unhappy and I was almost there,” Ackermann said.

With his side trailing 14-3 at the break, Ackermann admitted they had to dig deep to get the result which was in the balance until the final seconds.

“I must say in that last bit there were a lot of grey hairs and I was thinking ‘is this the way you are going to end your time here at the Lions?’.”

Erratic goalkicking from flyhalf Elton Jantjies didn’t help.

The Lions dedicated the match to lock Franco Mostert’s brother JP, a Valke lock who was involved in a serious accident on Friday night, breaking his neck after his car rolled.