Lions break Sharks hearts
25 Sep 2010
Franco van der Merwe scored a last minute try as the Lions beat the Sharks 22-20 at Ellis Park, writes GRANT BALL.
While the grounding of the ball in Van der Merwe’s score was dubious, you couldn’t say the Lions didn’t deserve to win. Sharks fans who complain about the try will also be well served to remember Lwazi Mvovo’s second score, which shouldn’t have been allowed.
Earlier the Lions suffered the worst possible start when Mvovo cantered over in the second minute, while in the same movement the hosts’ hooker Martin Bezuidenhout threw a punch and was yellow carded. Leading 5-0, playing against 14 men and exuding ultimate confidence in the try-scoring movement where they ran from their own 22, the odds were in the Sharks’ favour.
However, the Lions outscored the visitors 3-0 in that 10-minute period via an Elton Jantjies penalty. It’s been repeated throughout the season how different this Lions outfit is compared to the Super 14, but it can’t be emphasised enough. With the numerical advantage, on one occasion the Sharks pounded away for 19 phases at the Lions line and also exhibited brilliant offloading, but the Lions wouldn’t relent.
That theme continued for the rest of the half as the Sharks had all the possession, but the Lions’ cover defence and turning over ball at the breakdown was outstanding. After another multi-phase Sharks attack, a dropped pass fell into the hands of a Lions player 5m from their own line. The hosts countered rapidly, another feature of their play this season, and with Jannie Boshoff feeding Jaco Taute, the fullback finished off under the poles.
The Sharks replied through Mvovo’s brace, and even though the visitors had dominated possession, they were lucky to head into the shed level at 10-all. Mvovo again showed impressive pace and strength, but he had clearly placed a foot out in the build-up, but the assistant referee inexplicably missed the act.
Jantjies, who had been in exemplary goal-kicking form before last week’s match against the Bulls, also missed three penalties at goal, while Lambie hit the upright with an easy conversion for the first try.
In the first fixture between the sides at Kings Park the Sharks’ similar first half onslaught also didn’t yield results on the scoreboard, but eventually the defending took its toll on the Lions as they conceded 50 points. However, that didn’t look like repeating itself when they took a five-point lead when Waylon Murray scored against his former side after running an incisive angle to break the line.
But the impact of having to make 100 tackles in just 55 minutes eventually told when Odwa Ndungane benefited from quick ruck ball to score his side’s third try. Lambie nudged over his first kick of the match and then a penalty to hand the Sharks a five-point lead.
While the hosts had to defend in the opening half, the Sharks were forced into many tackles in the final quarter, while Ryan Kankowski’s ill-discipline for stomping on a player saw him miss the final four minutes.
Poetically the Lions’ inspirational captain scored in the final movement and while all his team-mates have showed improved resolve from earlier in the year, special mention must also be made of Josh Strauss, Jano Vermaak and Doppies la Grange.
The Lions face the Cheetahs in Bloemfontein and Pumas at home with their semi hopes still alive, while the Sharks versus Western Province match could prove vital in who tops the log.
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202 Comments
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26 Sep 2010, 11:56 am
a 50/50 decision against the Pumas … a shocking decision against the Sharks … hell on this trend Lions can win the Currie Cup … f the star players, get k@k refs to ref and give them some money under the table. Clever lions
26 Sep 2010, 12:24 pm
@quotas_sux(quota_conrad_jantjies_is_jorrie_muller)-151: You don’t know much…do u!!
26 Sep 2010, 16:04 pm
With Pro and Jaftha reffing the Sharks, it’s surprising they are not last on the log.
pisspooor in all departments both of them and yet they continue to get the top of the log team.
And now Kanko is cited for almost being tripped up?
That citing comissioner Burger would do well to change his blue and white striped underpants sometime, and while he’s at it white the brown stain from him lips.
Pathetic attempt at highjacking the Sharks before they play WP. Freek I hope you suffocate while sniffing your own jocks.
26 Sep 2010, 16:10 pm
@goyougoodthing2(goyougoodthing2)-153:
Been sucking on a lemon ?
26 Sep 2010, 16:18 pm
@justrugby(justrugby)-154: No they just are fairly less than average refs. And to cite Kanko, for that? Utter rubbish.
Will the WP stop at nothing, have they no shame?
26 Sep 2010, 16:29 pm
@goyougoodthing2(goyougoodthing2)-155:
As expected, your team is beginning to choke as the competition is nearing its business end. It got nothing to do with WP, they cannot help it if the Sharks cannot handle the pressure.
I wonder where the master of making the wrong predictions (HG) is hiding today?
26 Sep 2010, 17:49 pm
@Robzim(Robzim)-157:
That’s funny. One loss and the hyenas are out to cackle.
26 Sep 2010, 18:07 pm
@goyougoodthing2(goyougoodthing2)-153:
Sore loser – as the old-timers say, “Look at the scoreboard!”.
I watched the game with some Sharks fans – when Mvovo clearly stepped out and it was missed, they were dead quiet. But when Franco van der Merwe didn’t seem to clearly ground the ball at the end, suddenly they were out of their chairs claiming some sort of referee conspiracy against them!
Rather ask why the Sharks weren’t able to score more often against a Lions team that had put in twice the number of tackles in the first half!
The Lions deserved that win, very gutsy by them.
26 Sep 2010, 18:09 pm
@goyougoodthing2(goyougoodthing2)-153:
That stamp by Kankowski to the player’s chest was almost a kick, it was a brain **** from him.
Doesn’t matter if you get provoked, you should know this by now.
26 Sep 2010, 18:30 pm
well done lions!
what a great game of rugby to watch.
cmon sharks fans. forget about the ref. the lions deserved that win on sheer guts alone.
they won the collisions and thats what kept them in it. the number of turnovers the sharks conceded will need to be rectified sharpish as the playoffs loom.
again, well done lions! and LMAO at doppies and his sh i t comment, you could have fried an egg on his forehead after that
26 Sep 2010, 18:56 pm
so.
i see all the wp fans are almost having orgasms online here over the sharks loss.
well lets have a look at what this means shall we?
if i am not mistaken, wp have two games left. a home game against the sharks and an away game against the bulls.
the sharks play the leopards at home and wp away.
the sharks lead the log by 4 points.
they will presuamably take 5 points off the leopards.
so in order for wp to end top of the log, they would need to take 5 points off both the bulls and the sharks and prevent the sharks getting any points in their matchup at newlands.
this is a very exciting end to the season but i have the feeling the sharks will end up topping the log for the second year running.
26 Sep 2010, 19:07 pm
yes top the log and then lose against a k@k team : Lions or Cheetahs again … lol, chokers
26 Sep 2010, 19:10 pm
Quotas Prince & Thysen just cost the warriors 5Mill
26 Sep 2010, 19:31 pm
@WP Till I Die(WP-Forever)-159: It wasn’t a brain ****, it wasn’t a stamp. But be sure Burger will cite.
No problem with WP but do have problems with one eyed citing commissioners – is a full on punch also not worth a citing?
As for the Sharks, yep, they lost it in the collisions and better get working there, they got walked over in many rucks.
I still maintain though, referees for big matches should be the big ones. Imagine the Lions lost because Mvovu wasn’t picked up, that would also be a tragedy from the Lions.
Pick the big refs for the big games, as a WP supporter I know you’d cry like a baby if one of these guys ranked 5 or 7th stuffed up a home semi for you, or made you lose in a semi or final. Fair is fair, I’ve seen this happen with refs so mamy times, look at the Lions the week before, they were robbed.
Time these guys had to be accountable, and I have been saying this for years.
Pro is ranked 5th (wtf) in SA and yet was disgraceful in the S14 and was dropped from the panel. huh?
Please understand, this is not an attack on the characters of the guys, they mostly seem decent guys, even if some of them wear too much fake tan (MR Lawrence).
It’s just like throwing a player in when he is too young, or a coach when he hasn’t the experience etc etc. They don’t mean to make mistakes but they happen.
That is why panels should be more responsible with the selections, but this is Africa and this is SARU…
26 Sep 2010, 20:20 pm
That number 8 of the Lions looks like he could be the SAa version of Chabal, good player from what I could see in yesterdays game
26 Sep 2010, 20:29 pm
@goyougoodthing2(goyougoodthing2)-164: like you, I watched the game Goody. Noted the match official errors but unlike you I attributed these to normal run of the mill officiating performance. They were no worse or better than any other group of officials I ever seen. Even the so called best. I wouldn’t get on my high horse over the slip ups boet. Pointless and perhaps even bordering on the prejudicial IMHO.
26 Sep 2010, 20:31 pm
@quotas_sux(quota_conrad_jantjies_is_jorrie_muller)-163: and you’re a total prick. What do you know about cricket?
26 Sep 2010, 20:32 pm
@TASSIES(TASSIES)-166: I wonder if Paddy o’Brian agrees or maybe now that it is not the Tri Nations he could not care less
26 Sep 2010, 20:47 pm
@JL1(JL1)-168: Howzit boet? Were you at Vicarage Road this pm perhaps? Good game. Sarries were big. Very enjoyable. Even from down here in damp ol Nuweland. Ref for that game made a few dodgy calls to. Part of the game. Touch judge should have called Mvovo for that step on the white yesterday, no doubt. Got it totally wrong. Seen far worse myself as I’m sure you have. I’ve even scored a five(in today’s terms) pointer without the ball. Still celebrating.
26 Sep 2010, 20:53 pm
@rangerman(rangerman)-161: hey bushman don’t crack open the soetas yet boeta. PV are not going to be easybeats at either Newlands or Loftus. If my team play to their potential they have the beating of the Bulletjies, Bokke restock and all. But agree; this season it a moerava close call. Enjoy.
26 Sep 2010, 21:00 pm
@TASSIES(TASSIES)-166: If speaking the truth is prejudicial then I’m all it. I don’t give a flyingfuckinwinter whether saying the supposed No 5 and No 7 refs are particularly shytewithacapitalshyte.
Not going to change the way things are, just stating my case, like everyone else in here, that is my opinion.
26 Sep 2010, 21:08 pm
Let’s face it – the ref is only kak if the decision goes against your team. When he makes a mistake in your favour, well he’s only human.
Isn’t this true, my fishy friends?
26 Sep 2010, 21:13 pm
@TASSIES(TASSIES)-169: Brilliant game, I was watching on ESPN
Venter seems to be a very astute coach
26 Sep 2010, 21:15 pm
@katman(katman)-172: Catman, I have been bleating about refs, win or lose for a long time. Their influence is getting bigger every day and their mistakes are costing teams even more money
26 Sep 2010, 21:16 pm
@goyougoodthing2(goyougoodthing2)-171: The guys were not the top refs in the world. Think that was pretty obvious. Do you even remember their names? Because I don’t. But they require ‘big’ games to learn. I’ve seen a lot worse. I enjoyed the game. Pretty sure most did because it was allowed to flow. So the guys didn’t do too badly in my book, given the international benchmark. It’s my opinion that we’re too quick to criticise is all.
26 Sep 2010, 21:20 pm
@JL1(JL1)-173: I’ll say. How was that driving by the big boys? Poetry? That game was almost an international.
26 Sep 2010, 21:24 pm
@katman(katman)-172: you’re an exceptionally wise man Kat. Exactly how it works. I was perfectly neutral on saturday and couldn’t have given a toad’s testicle who won out in the end. Just enjoyed the spectacle totally unstressed.
26 Sep 2010, 21:43 pm
@TASSIES(TASSIES)-176: Yep, the boys played well
Did you see the breaking news on the Aussies being in radio connection with Eddie Jones in 2003 RWC
Built into their scrum caps apparently
26 Sep 2010, 22:02 pm
@JL1(JL1)-178: nope. You’re one step ahead of us down here mate. Keo’s girls are asleep at this time. Where did you read that one?
26 Sep 2010, 22:07 pm
Marvellous result!! I see great potential in this Lions team who are now getting some decent coaching from Mitchell.
We need a strong Lions team in the Currie Cup and Super 15. We don’t want a team just to make up the numbers
Well Done Gauteng!
26 Sep 2010, 22:14 pm
@TASSIES(TASSIES)-179: The Rugby Paper
26 Sep 2010, 22:18 pm
@TASSIES(TASSIES)-179: Also Nagaluvuki signed with Bristol
26 Sep 2010, 22:24 pm
Just watched a documentary on SABC2 showing how sports boycotts by anti apartheid activists throughout IOC and other organizations, and with orchestrated anti apartheid movement against Rugby tours to UK in 69, Australia 71, NZ tour to SA in 76 and Bok tour to NZ in 81 did as much to bring down apartheid regime as other financial and international embargo’s did.
Rugby here has been deigned to religious type status amongst certain communities, and it is way out of reality in terms of its real priority of importance as far as the contrast between human plight and human sporting prowess goes.
Rugby should be seen in the true context it actually represents, and not as a type of super human racial statement of ridiculous intent. Some like Hondo will never really get it, pity that the human individual is still largely by decree the remnant of the neanderthal specie he actually is.
26 Sep 2010, 22:25 pm
Well done Lions……….good to see one of the “big boys” back in business. Now take it to the S15!
26 Sep 2010, 22:27 pm
It only a game after all…………….
26 Sep 2010, 22:35 pm
South American football teams and their fans and then European teams and their fans
Celtic and Ranger fans
So it is not isolated to rugby
26 Sep 2010, 22:48 pm
It is when it is put up as a statement of ethnic superiority or religious type identification with undertones of racial attitudes of supremacy that it turns into a complete and utter human farce.
Pity that rugby here identifies with ethnic diversity more so than any other sporting code. That is why I appreciate athletics and some other sporting endeavors where individual attribute is rated higher than clannish type collectivity of groups in a team sport context.
It is ridiculous to think that that which should embark man on a quest to reach his highest ideals sometimes actually denotes the opposite and brings out the worst in him, his lowest common denominator and his underlying human prejudice.
26 Sep 2010, 22:50 pm
Football is just as ridiculous, maybe even worse. Human mob stupidity personified.
26 Sep 2010, 22:52 pm
Interesteing e-mail
American Chamber of Commerce in South Africa:
…I am an American who has been living and working in pre and
post Apartheid South Africa for the last twenty years. Over the
past 24 months the growing administrative chaos and corruption in
the current ANC lead national government has become so weighty
that those of us on the ground are now feeling the burden. The
“new” South Africa of everyone’s hopes and dreams is taking on
the character of a failed state. By any reasonable, civilized
Western standard of government competence, delivery and
efficiency South Africa is a failed state. On the matter of
crime, though the most recent statistics are mildly promising, at
approximately 21,000 murders a year or nearly 57 murders a day
South Africa has the mortality/casualty rate of a country engaged
in a low-grade civil war such as Iraq .
I have had the wonderful opportunity to work with many people in
South African business. They are not afraid to share their
stories or line up to emigrate. Simply put, their consensus is
that there is a crisis of acceptable standards brewing at all
levels especially when State administrative structures become
sullied with motives of punitive taxation and end up riddled with
crime, corruption, graft, squandering of funds, entitlement and
administrative dereliction. The current massive, country-wide
strikes which are shaking down the country are signs of things to
come. I have been warned by one of my students, an astute
investment broker, that this is a sure sign of regime change in
South Africa.
26 Sep 2010, 22:58 pm
i find it fascinating that so many saffas abroad spend so much time looking for kak about there homeland…..why?
Is it because the okes who left want there country to fail?
Is it because of guilt? So hoping the country implodes so the saffas abroad can say …’ we told you so ‘….
Serious question?
Its like the saffas overseas take some sort of morbid satisfaction in highlighting the challenges we face…..those that chose to stay and make things work.
26 Sep 2010, 23:01 pm
@grant10(grant10)-190: This sht gets mailed to us Saffas abroad, daily, almost like begging for help
I get no enjoyment to see how a the country is being messed up
Do not be in denial and do something about it, I am
26 Sep 2010, 23:02 pm
@JL1(JL1)-191: i must do something about it?
Are you so certain i am not??
26 Sep 2010, 23:04 pm
@grant10(grant10)-192: I would hope so
But to criticise the current government should be done the same as the previous one was criticised
26 Sep 2010, 23:05 pm
and the 1 thing i will not do is post negative stuff on a blog.
26 Sep 2010, 23:07 pm
@JL1(JL1)-193: there are ways and means to go about improving your country….posting negative conjecture on a blog is not 1 of them.
but its late.
outta here
26 Sep 2010, 23:10 pm
you looking for corroborating evidence to justify your defection or what?
26 Sep 2010, 23:15 pm
@skopskiet(yliad)-196: No need to
26 Sep 2010, 23:21 pm
This government with all its warts and pimples are a thousand times, maybe even a million times better than the previous one by some distance.
Whites are still allowed to retain their status parameters of survival in a society that still has huge caste distinction separating wealthy from the poor, in spite of some of the unfair discriminatory practices which gave them their so called ethnically assumed advantages. The colonialist countries all got built on the backs of the blood and sweat of the poor and downcast while the fat cats sit in their ivory towers of supremacy, as they continue to do still.
Such is the way of the jungle, survival of the fittest, but all wheels turn and what was strength once becomes weakness later.
Nothing is cast in stone, not even ethnic divisive atrocities born out of ignorance and blighted religious type convictions of superiority.
27 Sep 2010, 01:41 am
@grant10(grant10)-190:
Don’t generalise D ick head!
27 Sep 2010, 08:40 am
Well done Lions.
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