A scrappy game with more refereeing controversy sees the Reds beaten by the Lions at Ellis Park, 23-20.
The Match
The Reds have suffered an upset defeat at the hands of fired up Lions outfit following a disastrous second half in which they failed to score a point.
It started brightly enough for the Reds, their forwards were making in roads and presenting the vaunted Genia/Cooper combination with quick front-foot ball allowing Cooper to control the game well. The Lions seemed to have turned up remembering their last outing against the Blues and were determined to run the ball form pretty much everywhere. They lacked execution as final passes were not sticking and Liam Gill & co were able to make some turn overs or force penalties to kill attacking moves.
After an early penalty to Cooper, the Reds first try came from a Lions attempt to run the ball which, like a lot of the Lion’s early attempts, ended up in a turn over. In their 22, Cooper jolted the ball loose in a tackle and had the presence of mind to toe it through. The Lions regathered but threw a speculative pass which was picked off by Ben Tapaui who fed Cooper to canter over quite close to the sticks. The conversion made it 10-0 Reds after about 13 mins. The pace at this stage was pretty frenetic and the game was good to watch, if unstructured .
It looked as if the Reds were going to run up a high score when Dom Shipperly (on for Aidan Toua who left with an ankle injury) went over in the corner. This came from some good build up play from the Reds. The forwards were getting stuck into the rucks, runners were providing Cooper with options and the gain line was being consistently crossed. The ball was spun left but before awarding Shippers the try, the ref went upstairs to check a knock-on. After a few looks the TMO decided that the Lions player had committed a penalty offence so the ref called it back for a Reds penalty. To me that ought to have been advantage to the Reds, play on, try scored, but no. If it turns out the TMO has influenced another match the Lion’s favour, some serious questions are going to be asked. As it was, Cooper kicked the penalty and it was 13-0.
After the Lions pulled 3 points back, the Reds proved they weren’t too distracted by that perplexing bit of TMO-ing. More good phase play, with forwards bending the line and backs finding gaps led to another Cooper try as a he slid over between two confused defenders who were rooted to the spot by the off the ball runners around him. Another conversion made it 3-20 which is how it stayed until half time.
Not much seemed to change after half time. The Reds were still making meters with the ball in hand and Sanchez and Cooper were carving off huge slices of turf with a solid kicking game. That said, the Reds were again lateral in the attack too often and it was the Lions handling errors and fairly naive tactical play that presented most of the chances to the Reds.
Referee Stuart Berry decided to blow the pee out of whistle and Reds will surely feel aggrieved about a lot of the penalties called. The game was steadily getting more and more scrappy, the Reds getting pinged at pretty much every scrum – and there were A LOT of scrums from shoddy handling. There was clear sense of frustration in the Reds players as passes started getting dropped. The match began to take on a different shape as the Lions decided to tighten things up and go for some traditional SA mauling play which started to bring even more penalties, two more of which were converted.
With the score at 20-9, Lionel Mapoe scored a good try taking advantage of poor defensive communication from Cooper and Rocket Davies by just running hard at the gap between them. Boshoff, the Lions fly-half, is kicking at over 90% this season and he knocked the extras over to make it 16-20. From then on, the Lions really lifted as they were in with a real chance. With the ref was whistling the Reds off the park you could sense an upset.
After a warning and more penalties, the ref put Chibba Hanson in the bin on about 70 minutes. Shortly afterwards Jack Schatz followed him when he earned the ref’s ire at ruck time for who knows what. A lot of the big names in the Reds pack had clocked off around the 65 minute mark so it was always going to be a tough as to see out the match for 8 minutes with 13 men. So it proved, when, after another endless series of scrum resets and penalties, the Lions put it to touch for a line out. The Reds managed to stop the maul but their livewire halfback spun it back blind and the wiry winger Skosan was over, after a close look from the TMO. Boshoff made the tough conversion from wide left and the Reds were down 23-20, down two men, missing Gill who’d done a hamstring, missing leadership, missing Simmons who’d just gone missing and deep in it. It was going to be a tough ask to salvage something.
Despite giving some hope with a late surge into the Lion’s half, the ref awarded a questionable turn over instead of a penalty to the Reds for not rolling away and the Lions were home for a famous win.
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The Game Changer
You’d have to say Lionel Mapoe’s try, which bought the Lions within a score, gave the Lions belief that despite being a team with barely a name known outside Jo-Burg, they could get a win over a side full of wallabies and looking to make the finals.
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The G&GR MOTM
For the Lions, Stuart Berry performed well with the whistle in hand & mouth, really dominated the tackle & ruck area and allowed the Lions’ unheralded forwards to to step up and shade their better known opposites. The young wing Skosan took his try well as did Mapoe. If Marnitz Boshoff hadn’t kicked the goals the Lions would be left wondering what might have been, so he gets it for me.
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Wallaby watch
Cooper showed he’ll be there or there abouts come the tests. Genia went some way, at times, to answering the recent questions but he didn’t do anything to force Link to pick him. Big Kev bent the line at times but he needed to rally the troops when the ref was getting onto his side. Gill, after a committed effort, left the field late with a hamstring injury & could be gone a while. None of the other players with test caps did much to impress. The ref was bad but some of the Reds players need to give themselves an uppercut.
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The Details
Crowd:
Score & Scorers
[one_half last=”no”]Lions: 23
Tries: Mapoe, Skosan
Conversions: Boshoff (2)
Penalties: Boshoff (3) [/one_half]
[one_half last=”yes”]Reds: 20
Tries: Cooper (2)
Conversions: Cooper (2)
Penalties: Cooper (2)
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Cards & citings
Hanson (persistent infringing), Schatz (not rolling away) – Yellow Cards.
