Springboks 28
Lions 25
The Springboks snatched a fantastic and brutally physical test match from the grasp of the Lions yesterday to take the series in Pretoria.
Morne Steyn's stunning last-minute penalty goal from 55m sailed over to nail the match and the series. It left the courageous Lions stunned and dragged the dismal Springboks out of jail. They never deserved their win for the only rugby they played was in the last 18 minutes. At one point, they trailed 19-8 with only 20 minutes left.
The fact that the Boks did enough, just, to see off the Lions' challenge told you about the lack of strength in depth in this Lions squad. Once the Lions lost both their props, plus centres Brian O'Driscoll and Jamie Roberts, they were down to the bare bones and the match turned decisively.
In the end, it was two crucial mistakes in the final six minutes by Irish substitute Ronan O'Gara that cost the Lions the series after they had built an 18-9 lead with only 20 minutes remaining.
O'Gara badly missed substitute Jaque Fourie as he smashed his way over for a try after 74 minutes. Then, in the last minute, O'Gara ran the ball out of his own 22, launched a high kick ahead and then tackled Fourie du Preez while he was in the air. It was a ghastly double blunder by the Irishman who had only come on as substitute for Roberts with 12 minutes left.
For most of the game, the Springboks were second best. Indeed, one of the shoddiest first-half performances by any world champion side seemed to have handed the Lions a liferaft back into this test series. For almost an hour, the tourists seemed good enough to take it but the South Africans' late recovery came just in time.
From the first minute when South African flanker Schalk Burger attacked the eyes of Lions wing Luke Fitzgerald, the skids were under the Springboks. The rugby they produced in the first 40 minutes made a mockery of their standing as world champions.
The Boks were all over the place, as wobbly as a blancmange, and Burger should have received a straight red card.
"A tough call on Schalk but you are not allowed to do that," was how former Springbok Naas Botha called the incident on TV. Burger was cited and will appear before a disciplinary officer. He will surely be banned from at least the first half of the Tri-Nations and maybe all of it. He deserves it.
Bakkies Botha was also cited for a dangerous tackle on a Lions forward.
Burger's offence was a cheap, dangerous shot and it ought to have no place in the game. For a player at this level to stoop so low in personal standards and, in addition, put the skids under his team, was unforgivable. What a way to celebrate your 50th cap.
Certainly, in the time Burger was in the sin bin, the Springboks looked all over the place. They conceded 10 points but it was the psychological damage that was inflicted in that time that was the real cost of Burger's folly. As Springbok skipper John Smit said after, "It was an uphill battle for us from the moment Schalk got yellow carded."
Even when he returned, loudly booed and jeered by the thousands of Lions fans, the Springboks could not get hold of the game. Their confidence was shot to pieces, that first 50 minutes of complete ascendancy at Durban last week a thing of the past.
Only when the Lions lost their props Gethin Jenkins and Adam Jones in the same moment five minutes after halftime, causing uncontested scrums, did the balance shift. Then the Springboks began to win more ball although they were still inferior at the breakdown where Tom Croft and David Wallace were superb. So too was 35-year-old Lions lock Simon Shaw, whose power was instrumental in several turnovers and who rightly won the man of the match award. The Lions' tight five play was superb for an hour and their physicality was immense.
So the series goes to the Springboks and they must be odds-on to make it a 3-0 whitewash next week in Johannesburg, especially with the Lions now hammered by injuries. Yet this was no classic display by the South Africans. They lacked control, authority or much precision for an hour, a far cry from the standards demanded of world champions.
