Don’t make Jerry a scapegoat
JOHN BATEMAN has urged fans not to lay the blame for this defeat at Jermaine Mcgillvary’s feet.
The Lions winger lost control of the ball as he went to ground it in a tackle from Kenny Bromwich.
The 77th minute effort would have pulled the Lions level, with a kick to come and just three minutes to go.
Instead, the Kiwis hung on for victory, dooming the Lions to a second successive defeat on the back of last week’s loss to Tonga.
But back rower Bateman said: “It is not all down to Jerry. You probably only remember that because it was the last opportunity of the game.
“We had opportunities throughout the game and if we’d taken them it doesn’t all come down to Jerry.
“We let them put two tries on us early in the second half and we were chasing our tails again.
“But there are some positives, no doubt about it.”
The Lions need to beat the Kiwis in the return fixture in Christchurch next
Saturday to stop the tour turning into a disaster. But, in the second half at least, this performance showed more spark than last week’s display.
They have still only scored two tries in two games, but coach Wayne Bennett insists that he is not worried by that statistic.
He said: “The opposition have only scored two. There was a lucky one last week from Tonga and there’s one out there today that we should probably have held up. The bottom line is no one is scoring a lot of tries.”
The first half ended 2-2, but the Kiwis then scored tries from Jamayne Isaako and Corey Harawira-naera before Daryl Clark pulled one back.
Injured Oliver Gildart will leave the tour on Wednesday.