Lions lash rusty Reds
18 Apr 2009
Henno Mentz’s hat-trick handed the Lions a 31-20 bonus-point win over the Reds in Brisbane.
Two of Mentz’s tries came directly from punishing defence, and this should be a simple lesson for the Lions. The visitors looked better without the ball as they countered with verve and trusted their defence on most occasions, while the Reds were forced into numerous errors.
However, the Lions mustn’t get carried away by this win. The Reds were woeful. It was 12 vs 13 on the log before kick-off and both sides showed exactly why.
The standard of this basketball game was typified by a period of play on the 15-minute mark where both sides conceded the ball twice, before the Lions eventually blew a chance to score when Jannie Boshoff made contact before passing.
The Reds were always going to try loosen the game up but why the Lions fell into the same trap in the opening half is a mystery as better sides would have punished their mistakes.
The loss of Jaque Fourie and Louis Ludik robbed them of their thrust in the backs, while their replacements provided inconsistent performances. The Lions’ backs were often guilty of lateral running, with no one to straighten and provide impetus as Fourie would have done.
Earl Rose was selected at fullback in Ludik’s absence and he looked extremely shaky under the high ball, not because of a lack of talent or technique, but simply because he was petrified of the oncoming tacklers.
However, Rose made up for it when he initiated the first try from a turnover that came from Todd Clever’s tackle. Rose countered from the 22 and threw a long pass to Mentz who weaved his way past Peter Hynes to score under the posts.
The Lions’ defence handed up numerous linebreaks in the opening half hour and eventually scrumhalf Will Genia made them pay. Genia broke round the side of the ruck and eased pass a disinterested Rose.
Whenever the Lions were in a comfortable lead they handed the initiative straight back to the hosts.Captain Ernst Joubert charged down Genia’s box kick (17-5), but straight away sub Scott Higginbotham crashed over to reduce the deficit.
The Lions were comfortable heading into the shed 17-10 up, but Heinke van der Merwe went off with what looked a serious leg injury.The scrum managed to stay steady for a brilliant first-phase try (Mentz’s second) as Deon van Rensburg delivered a brilliant offload behind the defender’s back.
Then the Lions began to implode as brain explosions were the order of the day as a repeat of the Chiefs debacle seemed likely. Firstly, reserve flank Robert Kruger was sin binned for an outrageously late tackle, then two minutes later Anton van Zyl got the same punishment for his cynical infringement.
Quade Cooper cruised over while they only had the one man advantage but the Lions were under real pressure. However, while they were down to 13 Mentz claimed his hat-trick from another Reds mistake as he cruised over from 70m. Yet again it came from solid defence that forced the mistake - this time from Lawrence Sephaka.
The Lions now face the Force in their final match overseas. With seven tour points already, a win will deem the tour a success. However, a defeat and it will be another mediocre Australasian sojourn.
By Grant Ball
362 Comments
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18 Apr 2009, 15:39 pm
Ha ha ha!
I looked again and sure enough it’s true!
The ‘mighty’ Stormers is below the Lions on the log!
Ha ha ha!!!
18 Apr 2009, 15:40 pm
..are…
18 Apr 2009, 15:40 pm
#350 Transformation: Weren’t you screaming out for people to respect other people’s opinions earlier? Let tighthead say what he has to say. If you disagree with his view say why in a reasonable manner. Don’t bait.
18 Apr 2009, 15:41 pm
Are the Lions below the Stormers???
Nope, no sirree! They are indeed below the Lions.
18 Apr 2009, 15:53 pm
#349 Spooner: oh really spooner ”a settled squad”? I thought australia were tired, ragged after having lost to wales, robbie deans played an inexperienced side with young james o’connor @ fullback, so please save it…jake had carte blanche to select any player in the world bar aussies onto that side & he decided to stick with steyn, koster, habana & co, so to lose that game can’t be put to the fact that they had a week to practice, he had mccaw and them @ his disposal & he chose to put a glory hunting half-baked kid @ flyhalf who drop kicked any & everything he could get his little hands on, regardless of overlaps or centres in good positions…
18 Apr 2009, 16:08 pm
#349 Spooner:
imagine if jake coaches the stormers next year,and perform to boot…
18 Apr 2009, 16:16 pm
#355 Transformation: You are starting to sound more and more like skopskiet in your irrational rugby views.
Don’t like Jake
Don’t like Steyn
Don’t like Burger
Love PDV
Love Watson
Got to love differences of opinion. The spice of life.
PS Baa Baas historical results v Australia:
28/11/01 49 – 35 to Australia
07/12/96 39 – 12 to Australia
28/11/92 30 – 20 to Australia
26/11/88 40 – 22 to Australia
15/12/84 37 – 30 to Australia
24/01/76 19 – 7 to Barbarians
28/01/67 17 – 11 to Australia
22/02/58 11 – 6 to Barbarians
31/01/48 9 – 6 to Barbarians
So tell me – were you really surprised that Australia won? Reeeaaallly?
18 Apr 2009, 16:19 pm
Australia have now won 6 consecutive games (including the one last year) against the Baa Baas… And Jake White, in the space of 5 days, wa expected to waltz in and trounce Australia? Puhleeease, as I said earlier, it really is scraping the bottom of the anti-JW barrel if you are going to rely on this one.
18 Apr 2009, 23:54 pm
Go lions!
19 Apr 2009, 00:42 am
#343 tight head:
I gave my 40 man Bok squad on the Sharks loss thread, go have a check over there and I’ll give you my run on team later.
As for me getting corroborating input from others here, you should know by now I’m pretty much my own person, I don’t take too much pride in being a yes man like some of your cowardly bunch of JW yes boys did to one lone individual in 2007, besides I generally make assessments on what I see in an individuals performance not on which color jersey the player wears or which ideology he buys into.
#357 Spooner:
As for this myth, JW did not go with standard Baa Baa protocol and treat that game with the usual Barbarian abandonment and play enterprising crowd pleasing rugby, he went in it to win at all costs because he desperately needed to confirm his credibility and superiority as the SA WC winning coach, so he took on Eddy Jones (again) and he employed the top players he thought would do the deed for him including his WC wonder kid Steyn to show up PdV as somebody who was missing a trick and Steyn was to show the world that he is the next world rated No.10 in the making.
That team comprised Smit, Burger, McCaw, Collins, Botha, Montgomery, JdV, Steyn, Williams, Habana, FdP, Rocococco, Gear, Gregan.
here are the team sheets again. Anybody reckon that was a riff raff Baa Baa team take another look, they should have annihilated that riff raff Aussie team instead.
Barbarians:
15. Percy Montgomery,14. Joe Rokocoko, 13. Rico Gear, 12. Jean de Villiers, 11. Bryan Habana, 10. Francois Steyn, 9. Fourie du Preez, 8. Schalk Burger, 7. Richie McCaw, 6. Jerry Collins, 5. Johann Muller, 4. Bakkies Botha, 3. Census Johnson, 2. John Smit (captain), 1. Federico Pucciariello.
Replacements: 16. Mark Regan, 17. Rodney Blake, 18. Chris Jack, 19. Nick Koster, 20. George Gregan, 21. Ollie Smith, 22. Shane Williams.
Australia:
15. James O’Connor, 14. Lote Tuqiri, 13. Ryan Cross, 12. Adam Ashley-Cooper, 11. Digby Ioane, 10. Quade Cooper, 9. Brett Sheehan, 8. Richard Brown, 7. George Smith, 6. Dean Mumm, 5. Hugh McMeniman, 4. Mark Chisholm, 3. Matt Dunning, 2. Tatafu Polota-Nau, 1. Sekope Kepu
Replacements:
16. Adam Freier, 17. Ben Alexander, 18. Peter Kimlin, 19. David Pocock, 20. Luke Burgess, 21. Lachie Turner, 22. Drew Mitchell
19 Apr 2009, 04:53 am
What a great result for the lions the only team to do sa proud,and quite frankly i think Henno Mentz is the best wing in sa at the moment no other wing comes close to his finishing skills he definitely deserves a bok call up.
19 Apr 2009, 06:59 am
#360 eish shibobo:
40 man squad!!
Why not pick the whole of SA!!
A 40 man squad means nothing.
A 6 year old can do that.
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