Springboks hold on to win opening test after spirited fightback from Lions

South African Springboks 26 British&Irish Lions 21

South Africa made the Lions suffer early on in the opening test in Durban with the first try for the home side coming after just four minutes through their skipper Jon Smit, with Ruan Pienaar slotting over the extras to deflate the Lion’s confidence bubble and give the Boks a 7-0 lead.
In the 8th Minute Ugo Monye crossed the try line but a fantastic defensive hand from De Villiers meant the English winger couldn’t ground the ball. Stephen Jones missed back to back penalty attempts with Pienaar and Francois Steyn slotting home back to back penalties to increase the lead to 13-0.
The Lions finally got on the scoresheet in the 22nd Minute as Brian O’Driscoll burst through the Springbok defence to offload to Tom Croft to score a try. Jones put the conversion over to halve the defecit to 13-7. Just after the half hour the Lions conceded two soft penalties inside their own 22 and Pienaar kept up his perfect record as he added another six points for the hosts. Pienaar missed his first kick just before the whistle for the break which would have opened up a fifteen point halftime lead for the World Champions but the 19-7 lead accurately reflected the opening 40 minutes
The second half begun with a symmetrical image of the first as the Boks went for the jugular spurning an easy three points the world Champions took the option of a rolling maul from a line out with the Boks forwards driving across the gain line for Brussow to touch down with Pienaar adding the conversion to make it 26-7. The Lions had an immediate chance to reduce the defecit but scrum half Mike Phillips was held up and lost the ball just short of the tryline whitewash.
As the clock passed the hour the Lions put pressure on the Boks tryline but the World champions defence was impregnable with the closest to a try coming as Brian O’Driscoll’s clever kick out right was almost gathered by his fellow Irishman Tommy Bowe. O’Driscoll finally created the breakthrough after a long spell camped in the South African 22 the Irish centre stepped inside and offloaded for Tom Croft to snatch his second try. Jones popped over the conversion to double the Lions’ score and keep them within two scores of the Springboks. Ugo Monye again got to the tryline with 8 minutes to go after good work in the midfield by O’Driscoll & Kearney but Monye dropped the ball as he was tackled on the line. A nightmare for the England winger was compounded two minutes later as he was again tackled short of the line after another clever pass from the Lions’ talisman O’Driscoll. The try finally came after 20 minutes of pressure as Mike Phillips went over after the Springboks were finally breached after some heroic defending to set up five minutes of mayhem to finish an extraordinary turnaround. Ricky Januarie knocked on to give the Lions a platform to win a match in which they were dead & buried after 50 minutes. The South Africans held on to make it to the hooter winning 26-21

Bob "The Voice" McKenzie Twitter: @BobTheVoice About: