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Lions savage Western Province

Saturday 02nd August 2008

Take that: Man of the match Louis Ludik flattens Joe Pietersen

The Lions put their hands up as Currie Cup contenders with a deserved 27- 13 win over Western Province in Johannesburg on Saturday.

The Lions were full value for their win as they combined some scintillating handling with a dominant forward pack to outscore their visitors threes tries to one.

The result sees the Lions move clear of their rivals from Cape Town and into fourth spot on the Currie Cup table.

All season Lions coach Eugene Eloff has lamented his side's inability to close-out games they dominate, but on Saturday the team in red and white finished off their chances in the clinical fashion that separates title contenders from the also rands.

For Western Province, it was their second unsuccessful visit to Gauteng this season after going down to the Falcons in Brakpan, and with a trip to Loftus Versfeld on the horizon at the end of the month the Cape side are unlikely to improve their away record any time soon judging by their performance at Coca-Cola stadium.

All the pre-match hype centred around Springbok hooker Schalk Brits who started at number eight for WP. Brits was the centre of attention again in the opening minutes as he made an horrendous mistake to hand the Lions the opening try.

As if moving from the front of the scrum to the back was not enough for Brits, he tried his hand at a full-back style clearance kick from inside his own 22. Unfortunately for WP fans he took an absolute age to line it up and eventually put ball to boot. By that time a real full-back, Louis Ludik, was on hand to charge the kick down.

Flank Franco van der Merwe followed up to kick off an awesome night for the Lions loose trio as he crashed over to open the scoring. Van der Merwe, Willem Alberts and captain Cobus "Baywatch" Grobbelaar were fantastic at the breakdown all night and starved WP of meaningful possession.

Fly-half Earl Rose added the extra two points which he followed up with two penalties in the first half. WP fly-half Willem De Waal added two of his own and the team headed for the sheds with the score at 13-6 to the Lions.

The Lions were clearly getting the better of their hosts with centre Doppies la Grange consistently getting over the gain line and the Brits experiment largely failing as his most meaningful contributions were in the line-outs - where he was doing the throwing in!

The home side kicked the second half off with a bang as scrum-half Jano Vermaak scored his third try of the season. Lions number eight Alberts wrapped around the back of a scrum with real venom before off-loading to a charging Ludik who combined with Vermaak to clinically round off an impressive move.

Rose converted to make the score 20-6 and WP looked to be running out of steam in the refined air up in Jo'burg.

The cynical observer would tell you that the Brits-at-eight experiment came to their rescue as injuries to Brok Harris, Deon Fourie and Kritzinger and no other front rowers on the WP bench forced referee Phillip Bosch to call uncontested scrum after 60 minutes.

Heinke van der Merwe and co. had had the upper hand in the scrums and on more than one occasion in the last quarter would have been grinding their teeth in frustration as they weren't allowed to hammer their opposition any more.

WP weren't about to lie down though and were next to score when replacement scrum-half Dewaldt Duvenage snuck through a half gap and popped the ball up for fellow replacement Nick Koster who dived over for the visitors' only try with fifteen minutes to play.

De Waal converted, and with the score at 20-13 the pessimists in Jo'burg were looking worried.

They shouldn't have been. The Lions pack continued their tireless work on the ground and La Grange sealed the game with a 80th minute try. The Lions centre put in a deft chip kick that bounced over the shortest man on the park, WP full-back Gio Aplon, before gathering and touching down with a synchronised dive alongside Vermaak.

25-13 it ended and the Lions will only look up from here.

The Scorers

For the Lions:
Tries: F. Van der Merwe, Vermaak, La Grange.
Cons: Rose 3
Pens: Rose 2

ForWestern province:
Try: Koster
Con: De Waal
Pens: De Waal 2

Yellow card: Senekal (Lions - 12th minute - foul play)

Lions: 15 Louis Ludik, 14 Michael Killian, 13 Jaco Pretorius, 12 Doppies la Grange, 11 Rayno Benjamin, 10 Earl Rose, 9 Jano Vermaak, 8 Willem Alberts, 7 Franco van der Merwe, 6 Cobus Grobbelaar (c), 5 Anton van Zyl, 4 Dewald Senekal, 3 Lawrence Sephaka, 2 Willie Wepener, 1 Heinke van der Merwe.
Replacements: 16 Ethienne Reynecke, 17 Gert Muller, 18 Justin Wheeler, 19 Derick Minnie, 20 Chris Jonck, 21 Jaco van Schalkwyk, 22 Heini Gordon.

Western Province: 15 Gio Aplon, 14 Wylie Human, 13 Dylan Des Fountain, 12 Gcobani Bobo (c), 11 Joe Pietersen, 10 Willem De Waal, 9 Bolla Conradie, 8 Schalk Brits, 7 AJ Venter, 6 Francois Louw, 5 Ross Skeate, 4 Adriaan Fondse, 3 Brok Harris, 2 Deon Fourie, 1 Wicus Blaauw.
Replacements: 16 JC Kritzinger, 17 Pieter Louw, 18 Justin Melck, 19 Nick Koster, 20 Dewaldt Duvenage, 21 Tonderai Chavhanga, 22 Morgan Newman.

Referee: Phillip Bosch
Touch judges: Jason Jaftha, Piet Badenhorst
Television match official: Johann Meuwesen
Assessor: André Watson