Hammer blow for the Lions captain
BRITISH & IRISH LIONS 28 JAPAN 10
The Lions got their tour off to a winning start but at huge cost.
Skipper Alun Wyn Jones was ruled out of the trip to South Africa after
lasting just seven minutes of yesterday’s Murrayfield warm-up.
The veteran second row landed awkwardly when he was cleared out of a ruck, and was led from the field cradling his left arm.
It was later revealed he’d dislocated his shoulder.
To add insult to injury, Justin Tipuric followed his Wales compatriot up the tunnel 15 minutes later with another shoulder knock.
It was cruel luck on the man probably favourite to start at openside flank in the Test matches as he’d only been drafted into yesterday’s team when Scotland’s Hamish Watson was ruled out through a training-ground concussion.
In truth, Watson – and fellow Scot Zander Fagerson, who was due to start before a back spasm ruled him out – were possibly fortunate not to play in this game.
It seemed as if the Lions, 21-0 up after 23 minutes, felt that was job done and took the foot off the accelerator.
You can understand that as no one wanted to get hurt in a warm-up and miss the trip of a lifetime to face the Springboks, particularly after seeing two team-mates led from the fray.
But it made for poor entertainment, especially if you’d paid £150 for a ticket as some in the 16,500 crowd had done.
The Lions were disjointed and Japan, while undoubtedly possessing some excellent players, looked like what they were, a team that hadn’t played Test rugby since their World Cup quarterfinal exit in October 2019, a tournament in which they’d knocked Scotland out in the pool stages.
That said, tryscorers Robbie Henshaw and Josh Adams both caught the eye, the Irishman looking especially sharp and powerful.
As for the Scots on show, Duhan van der Merwe did what was asked of him, scoring the Lions’ second try.
It was 17 minutes before he got a pass on his home pitch, and although his charge up the left flank was quickly halted, the ball was shuttled across the paddock and the Scotland wing somehow popped up at a ruck on the opposite touchline to scamper up the unguarded blindside for a muchcheered try.
Maybe he decided to go looking for work elsewhere because his leftwing beat was ignored by the Lions’ playmakers for much of the game.
Prop Rory Sutherland, the other Scot in the starting XV, did well enough and showed no signs of the shoulder injury that has kept him out for more than three months.
But this wasn’t his kind of game as he only had two scrums to deal with in his 51 minutes on the pitch.
Scrum-half Ali Price got the last 20 minutes but even he couldn’t spark the slumbering Lions into life.
Wales wing Adams opened the scoring when he stretched over the whitewash to dot down, and then Henshaw took Conor Murray’s pop pass to barrel over from point-blank range.
Dan Biggar’s third conversion meant the Lions galloped through the first quarter at a point per minute but the loudest sound from the crowd was the wave of booing when it was announced just before the break that “due to unforeseen circumstances” the stadium bars had been shut.
Five minutes after the restart Tadhg Beirne burst through the midfield cover and dived in under the posts to extend the Lions’ lead.
The game had gone to sleep a bit but Japan finally got on the scoreboard on the hour mark when replacement flanker Kazuki Himeno gathered the ball at the tail of an attacking lineout and was powered over, Yu Tamura adding the extras and later a penalty. LIONS – Williams (Watson 65); Adams, Henshaw, Aki (Farrell 56), Van der Merwe; Biggar, Murray (Price 60); Sutherland (W. Jones 51), Owens (George 55), Furlong (Sinckler 51), Henderson, A.W. Jones (Capt.) (Lawes 7), Beirne, Tipuric (Faletau 22), Conan.