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Hat-tricks for van der Merwe and Adams as Lions brush aside chaos

By PA
(Photo by PA)

The British and Irish Lions brushed aside the chaos enveloping their tour of South Africa to crush the Sharks 54-7 at Emirates Airline Park. A match threatened by coronavirus was given the green light less than two hours before kick-off as the Lions were forced to scramble a team together after eight players went into isolation following two positive tests.

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Four starters including half-backs Gareth Davies and Dan Biggar and four replacements had to be withdrawn from the matchday squad, with only the pack escaping any changes.

Evidence of the emergency surgery performed on the team was seen in Owen Farrell and Taulupe Faletau wearing shirts with no number and Louis Rees-Zammit playing in the 10 jersey. And in a farcical situation on the bench, Finn Russell was the only recognised option to cover all seven backline spots as part of an unheard-of seven-one split.

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The tour may be in danger of unravelling as the Lions search for new opponents to play on Saturday after Covid-19 accounted for the Bulls, as well as the Springboks’ clash with Georgia on Friday, but there was little evidence of anxiety on the pitch. After a brief warm-up due to the team arriving late as part of an extraordinary build-up to the second fixture on South African soil, they rolled up their sleeves and got stuck into the Sharks.

Josh Adams celebrated his third start in three games with another try, while Duhan van der Merwe showed he is also a serious contender for a wing slot in the Test series by crossing twice. Bundee Aki powered over and Farrell was conducting operations with calm authority against a tenacious but outgunned Sharks team that had lost nine players to the Springboks squad, including captain Siya Kolisi.

Farrell departed with a possible shoulder injury and after a spell of Sharks ascendency, Rees-Zammit made his mark while Adams and van der Merwe went to complete their hat-tricks. Adams has now amassed eight tries on tour. It looked bleak for the Sharks as early as the eighth minute as Farrell pulled the strings in a high-tempo start complete with offloads and fizzling long passes.

Adams and van der Merwe went over as a 14-0 lead opened up and after weathering a bright spell from their opponents with help from a timely Tom Curry turnover, the Lions advanced downfield with a break by Elliot Daly. Luke Cowan-Dickie failed to ground the ball over the line but the third try arrived in the 26th minute when Farrell spotted an unpatrolled backfield and kicked ahead for van der Merwe to grab his second.

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Successive scrum penalties gave the Sharks a rallying point around the set-piece but it was their only meaningful foothold in the game and as Sam Simmonds surged into space they came under pressure once more. Aki powered over from close range after a line-out drive, but the Lions lost their way early in the second half as Curry knocked on with the try-line beckoning and Farrell gave the ball away.

Enterprising play from the Sharks saw James Venter touch down and provincial tails were up until bad luck at a ruck enabled Adams to hack forwards and score. Rees-Zammit switched on the afterburners to cross after Adams made headway and inevitably van der Merwe and Adams grabbed their hat-trick tries as the home defence fell to pieces.

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

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N
Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

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