Match Report: A bit bitter

[James]

This is the kind of stuff you'd expect from the SMH taken from Rugby365 (admittedly a SA site):

The Western Force continued their remarkable Super 14 track record in South Africa, when they edged the Auto and General Lions 18-16 in their Round Three match at Ellis Park on Friday.

It was their second win on their three-match tour of the Republic, taking them to four wins and a draw in their seven outings in all trips to South Africa.

Just like last week, when they edged the Cheetahs by one point, the Force earned their win more through the errors of the opposition than their own sweat.

Despite dominating possession and territory - which forced the Lions to make well over 100 tackles, more than twice as many as the Force - the visitors managed just two tries, both coming from the lapses by the Lions.

Add to that the Lions' very poor handling, actually shocking considering they are meant to be professional players who earn a living catching and passing the ball, and it is a case of what could have been for the home team. Very harsh. Their skills were bad but it was more that they lacked imagination.

However, the Force deserves credit for getting the win, regardless of how it came.

At the end of the day, the scoreboard reads: Lions 16 Western Force 18.

The Lions made a strong start and enjoyed some early territorial advantage and earned reward for their efforts when flyhalf Louis Strydom opened the scoring with a sixth-minute penalty.

The home team continued to play a clever tactical game, but a momentarily lapse in concentration earned the Force their first try. From a tap-'n-go the visitors took the ball wide quickly and the Lions were caught napping on defence, with Cameron Shepherd strolling over untouched.

Matt Giteau slotted the conversion for a 7-3 lead.

Strydom and Giteau then exchanged penalties in quick succession, as the Force retained their four-point lead - 10-6.

The next try, by Force No.8 Tamaiti Horua, again come after a Lions mistake handed the Force quick ball. Some great running by flyhalf Matt Giteau created space, but the referee missed a forward pass and after the call went to the TMO for a possible foot in touch, the try was awarded. Giteau's conversion hit the upright and it was 15-6 to the visitors.

Strydom narrowed the gap to just six points - 9-15 - with his third penalty in the 27th minute.

The Lions continued to play a territorial game and it soon brought rewards, as the Force failed to clear from a poor line-out and Doppies la Grange - with a great pick-up off his toes - offloaded to Jaco van Schalkwyk for the home team's only try. Strydom slotted the conversion to put his team in the lead for the first time.

However, the score came at a cost, as La Grange pulled his hamstring when he bent down for the pick-up. This saw Jannie Boshoff introduced to the scene.

Both teams had a couple of opportunities in the final 10 minutes of the half, but failed to convert it into points and the Lions took that one-point (16-15) lead into the half-time break.

The Force applied the early pressure in the second half and enjoyed territorial advantage, but the Lions' defence held strong during a 10-minute period in which they saw very little of the ball.

Eventually the pressure told an a penalty in the 54th minute was slotted by Shepherd from just inside 50 metres to give the lead back to the Force - 18-16.

That was to be the last scoring act of the game.

The visitors continued to show great skill in offloading in the tackle, thus continuing with their sweeping movements across the field.

It took some really great scramble defence from the Lions to stop these moves and on a number of occasions they turned over ball just inside their 22 - when the Force really looked dangerous.

This Force-attack-Lions-defend scenario continued for another 10 minutes - as the home side continued to live off scraps from turnover at the tackle.

In the 64th minute Giteau had a chance to stretch the lead, but his penalty kick drifted wide of the uprights.

The same pattern continued for the rest of the half, as the Lions struggled to get enough ball to set up a scoring opportunity.

It also didn't help that they wasted the little ball they had through either sloppy handling or very ordinary option taking.

There was a last gasp effort from the Lions, as they finally took the ball through a few phases, but the Force held on in the face of what was really a toothless Lions attack.

And just as they did against the Cheetahs last week, the Force sneaked another win and maintained their remarkable record of having a 70 percent success rate in South Africa - this trip bringing them two wins from three starts.

Man of the match: The Lions loose forwards of Joe van Niekerk, Ernst Joubert and Cobus Grobbelaar made a huge impact. Force flyhalf Matt Giteau was his usual creative self. However, our award goes to Force centre Ryan Cross, who was solid on defence and very powerful in carrying the ball over the advantage line, always causing the Lions defence problems.

Moment of the match: This one was a negative moment, but still one that had a huge impact. It came in the 48th minute when the match officials conspired to deny the Lions a legitimate try, after they had managed to turn the ball over and scrumhalf Jano Vermaak sprinted 50 metres for the score - which was declined. It looked fine in real time and even more obvious during television replays that this call by New Zealand referee Kelvin Deaker was a shocker. Conspired? They make it sound like some kind of assassination plot. It was a bad call but incredibly hard to see and I think Deaker was feeling guilty from the Lions last try.

Villain of the match: Nothing untoward from the players. Just good, clean rugby. However, the Lions can truly feel aggrieved with the performance of referee Kelvin Deaker - who seemed oblivious to several blatant forward passes by the Force, yet never missed a trick in calling the Lions' mistakes. There was also a clear difference in the amount of time he allowed the Lions to play the ball at the breakdown, before penalising them, and the huge pauses that allowed the Force to clear rucks. Was it deliberate or coincidental? Only Deaker can honestly answer that! Its true Deaker wasn't crash-hot but the Lions were lucky not to get carded for not rolling away. We escaped with a few forward passes but only one (which was a 50-50 on the call because it was a high ball) truly affected the game. As for the rucks/breakdown issue if they were playing cleanly we wouldn't need plenty of time!



Scorers:

For the Auto & General Lions:
Try: Van Schalkwyk
Con: Strydom
Pens: Strydom 3

For the Western Force:
Tries: Shepherd, Horua
Con: Giteau
Pens: Giteau, Shepherd

Interesting- I think Auto & General, the Lion's sponsors, also sponsor Rugby 365. Makes sense. True SMHism.

[JediKnight]

Moment of the match: This one was a negative moment, but still one that had a huge impact. It came in the 48th minute when the match officials conspired to deny the Lions a legitimate try, after they had managed to turn the ball over and scrumhalf Jano Vermaak sprinted 50 metres for the score - which was declined. It looked fine in real time and even more obvious during television replays that this call by New Zealand referee Kelvin Deaker was a shocker.

Anyone else think that the Lions forward was offside as he barged through the lineout to disrupt Stannard's pass? Those of us at the casino certainly did. Therefore, the were hard done by as it should have been our penalty.

Villain of the match: Nothing untoward from the players. Just good, clean rugby. However, the Lions can truly feel aggrieved with the performance of referee Kelvin Deaker - who seemed oblivious to several blatant forward passes by the Force, yet never missed a trick in calling the Lions' mistakes. There was also a clear difference in the amount of time he allowed the Lions to play the ball at the breakdown, before penalising them, and the huge pauses that allowed the Force to clear rucks. Was it deliberate or coincidental? Only Deaker can honestly answer that!

To be fair, the ref was generally poor in equal measures to most sides & in some cases was just looking for an excuse to blow his whistle.

[travelling_gerry]

I reckoned that the ref called advantage over far too soon when after Sharpie was impeded in the line out..he called advantage.....the ball went out to the back line...Daruda was still behind the advantage line and was about to kick when he called "advantage over" and the kick as charged down..Lions try...

WRONG

[Thequeerone]

Force Versus the Refs

Sharks Game - Hodgson's try disallowed - ref said knockon by Force - wasn't it was a bleedin Shark

Cheetahs Game - Ref missed the 2 forward passes in the last nail biting 3 minutes

Lions Game -

Anyone else think that the Lions forward was offsideas he barged through the lineout to disrupt Stannard's pass?

In general I think we are square with the refs - you roll with the punches - that's rugby

was amused when the commentators thought Horuas try was from a forward pass by Gitts - they played the tape a couple of times it wasn't - pretty close but

[Ecky]

In particular I thought Deaker was crap at the tackle/breakdown. He regularly penalised the second offence - a trait of a very new ref. He is not a new ref. The number of times the tackler didn't release and roll plus the number of players not correctly entering through "the gate" (see this thread) was truly amazing to me.

While I was watching it from a supporter's point of view, Mr Deaker was, as previously pointed out, consistent to both teams: he was missing these infringements by both sides.

And that "advantage over" call - well I think most refs have been caught by calling this too soon. Again - as he is in the IRB panel, one would have thought he'd be in a position to see that the non-offending team had gained either tactical or territorial advantage, not merely the opportunity. There is a game management document that we've (the Perth Community Rugby refs) seen that mentions how advantage for a penalty should be let go for longer than advantage for a scrum or free kick. No evidence in that particular call.

All in all I was disappointed by the ref's performance but hey, we still won!

[GIGS20]

Well, with just about everyone else, I'm going to put my hand up and say the ref was crap, but I don't think his crap-ness affected the outcome, just the quality of the game, He missed stuff equally for both sides, and if there was a conspiracy, it was one to provide a rubbish game for us to watch!

Shame.....happy with the points!

[jazza93]

stanard played well, his quick ball to the backs was great.

[slomo]

ref was crap, it wasn't pretty but a wins a wins.......

[qld supporter]

I think 2 of the first 3 full arm penalties awarded to the Lions could have easily gone our way or play on, but these things usually even themseves out during the game. The big turning point in the game was midway through the first half when Gits was K'O'D ,and he never really recovered for the rest of the game , althoug he bravely played on out wider in the backline trying to recover.
This really disrupted our expansive style attack, and although we seemed in control of the result we couldn't put them to bed as I'm positive we would have with the selected backline functioning as they were in the first 20 mins.
All in all not the win we expected but it was at least a win, big challenge next week, lets hope everyones fit and available to play.

[GIGS20]

And definite evidence in these three games that we've lost the tendency to drop our bundle in the last five minutes of the close games. Each game had us in it with ten to go and each showed us calmly doing the business to get the job done!

All we need now is the ability to put weak teams to the sword!