Tame Lions experience a perfect Storm(ers)
Home side let it slip in tightly contested tie
At Ellis Park THE pain of being a fan can often feel like having your heart ripped out from inside your chest without anaesthesia, and that is how the Lions faithful felt when their team lost to the Stormers last night.
If the Lions want this season to be different from the ones where they finished last in Super Rugby, they will have to learn to win when they are winning. Despite an almost impenetrable defence, the home side let go of a four-point advantage with less than five minutes left on the clock to condemn themselves to a third straight defeat.
There was also an extraordinary period after the buzzer had sounded. The Lions earned three kickable penalties, trailing by three points, but opted to go for the win instead of settling for the draw.
Howard Mnisi knocked the ball on twice, the first time over the tryline, to gift the Stormers the win. This was not the way they planned to start the tournament, winless after three matches, with a four-week tour of Australasia to follow.
The Lions started like jilted lovers who suddenly met their home-wrecker in a dark alleyway. They had an axe to grind and the Currie Cup loss to Western Province last year wasn’t the least of their reasons.
But they had to go about their revenge mission systematically. They first pick-pocketed the Stormers at the breakdown and that led to pressure, and the pressure resulted in Warwick Tecklenburg spinning over for the opening try 17 minutes in.
The Stormers tried to respond as quickly as they could but their right of reply was denied when Steven Kitshoff and Nic Groom were held up over
UNSTOPPABLE: Stormers centre Juan de Jongh charges forward as Andries Coetzee of the Lions tries to stop him at Ellis Park yesterday the line.
The visitors spent a good 10 minutes five metres from the Lions tryline but just couldn’t invade the walls of Troy. After a series of penalties and bonecrunching tackles, a visibly frustrated Duane Vermeulen pointed to the posts for Demetri Catrakilis to have a shot.
It was as if he’d invested his life’s savings in the possibility that the Stormers would come away with a five- or seven-pointer, and the three points, their first of the match, were too mea- gre a return.
And so, even after enjoying as much a period of dominance as their opponents, the Stormers trailed 13-9 at the interval.
In conditions only Glaswegians would regard as summer, the Lions’ breakdown scrambling made the fearsome Stormers loose-forwards look like toy soldiers. At a flick, they were pushed from their own ball and turned over with disconcerting regularity.
The greasy surface made the scrums look like two snow- ploughs shoving each other on a sleety surface and it made for guesswork officiating by Andrew Lees.
In open play Tecklenburg, Warren Whiteley and Elton Jantjies were the most noticeable Lions players — but mostly Jantjies.
It was like watching the Jantjies of 2011 and 2012. His control of the game tempo was superb and his distribution judicious and accurate. But what validated his faultless evening was his flawless goal-kicking.
Lions fans had missed his minuet-like routine — almost caressing and flirting with the kicking tee, not wanting to hurt it by striking the ball cleanly above it — and they were pleased to see him slot five out of five attempts.
But the Stormers always had the lineout drive in their back pocket, that most primitive of rugby’s attacking weapons, in case they needed it. And they went at the Lions with a maul wrapped as tightly as a tourniquet.
It came in handy three minutes from time when they drove at the Lions line with the score at 19-15 in favour of the home side. Substitute Siya Kolisi was at the back of the avalanche, pushing and hustling, until Troy was invaded.