Margins great and small

Before the Lions spiral too deeply into despair at the dominance the Springboks showed in most areas of yesterday’s game, they should remember that, in spite of everything the South Africans threw at them, they created more than enough opportunities to pull off what would have been an historic against-the-odds victory against the World Champions in Durban.

As Lions nerves frayed and snapped in the first scrums and lineouts, the South Africans capitalised with an early try and penalties to convert their pressure into points. The opening try sums up the difference in forward play for the majority of the match – Jon Smit hit the Lions defence at pace from the back of a ruck, his momentum creating the five metres or so he needed to score; the Lions, by contrast, only ever gave static targets to the Springboks, who duly rushed up and stopped the forwards where they stood. The Lions must take the ball at a charge, and with the minimum of support runners to clean out quickly for another wave, as the South Africans do so well.

Phil Vickery seemed more surprised than anyone at the schooling he was given in the scrum by Tendai "The Beast" Mtawarira. Whether Mtawarira was boring illegally into Vickery or whether the Englishman was simply outplayed is a matter for debate – those who are more au fait with the scrum have told me it was a bit of both, and McGeechan has asked for clarification from yesterday’s referee – but tellingly the scrum’s problems disappeared almost entirely when Adam Jones came on five minutes into the second half. Jones, ever the diplomat, has said he didn’t understand why Vickery was being penalized either, and that by the time he came on man-of-the-match Mtawarira was exhausted.

Similarly, the Lions lineout looked safer with the introduction of Matthew Rees at hooker, and the all-Welsh front row that finished the game made invaluable contributions in the loose as well – their odds of starting the second Test have rocketed, for their presence on the field (admittedly with a number of other factors such as South African fatigue and substitutions) correlated with a stemming of the Springboks’ dominance and the beginning of the Lions’ fightback.

If I could single out one moment in which the Springboks were at their most superior, it was a rolling maul that covered half the pitch before eventually ending in a try from a lineout – this was where the South Africans’ much-vaunted physicality really came into play, as they smashed their way to the Lions’ line, but it was a technically superb move too that swerved, rolled and broke like water over rocks, finding its way to the sea. So naturally and powerfully did it flow that the Lions never looked at all like stopping it – have the ELVs that killed the rolling maul left us weak in this area, I wonder?

The Lions kicking was once again abysmal – touch-finders mostly found the arms of Francois Steyn instead – and although they collected one or two of the many Garryowens they hoisted, they looked so much more dangerous with ball in hand that the coaches must encourage them to attack this way in the next two Tests. Roberts and O’Driscoll are a match made in rugby heaven, and they had the beating of the South African backs all afternoon. The Springboks rushed up to try and blitz this threat so often, in fact, that I can’t help but wonder if the coaches will consider selecting O’Gara on the basis of his current love affair with the rugby league style chip. Hook, if fit, may well offer a similar option.

This is not to say that Jones had a particularly bad game – he missed a couple of difficult penalties, and his kicking from hand was indicative of the Lions’ kicking on the whole, but he got the ball out when it did eventually filter its way down through the forwards and his scrum half’s ever-so-slightly delayed delivery. Phillips almost always takes one unnecessary step when passing, and he was shown up yesterday by Fourie du Preez’s instant, inch-perfect service to Pienaar. Phillips also used the blindside too often, so predictably following the “use up all the space on one side before switching” theory that it killed the urgency of many a Lions attack.

Despite their failings, these two did get the back-line purring from time to time. It is strange to think that, but for the most desperate and fortunate of interventions from Jean de Villiers, Monye would have touched down after five minutes, and with a little more strength in the tackle he would have held onto the ball to score again at the end of the game. Phillips, too, spilt the ball over the line Shane Williams style while stretching out from a tackle. By such small margins are games won and lost, and theoretically the Lions could have won this one easily – it would have been a travesty/miracle depending on your point of view, because they only really played for 20 minutes of the match, and despite the Lions’ 60-65% possession there was a huge margin in class between them and the South African forwards.

As Jon Smit said after yesterday’s game, the pressure and intensity of next week’s match will be even greater – the Lions showed they could play wonderful rugby at times, and losing by such a small margin with a number of wasted chances allows them legitimately to believe that they can beat this South African team. The Springboks will be looking to close out the series after a scare yesterday – they were dominant, but with it came an unwarranted arrogance that allowed the Lions back into the game, and which, as Smit will be telling them all week, they cannot afford to show again.