Cell C Sharks v British & Irish Lions, 7 July

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CELL C SHARKS v BRITISH & IRISH LIONS
Wednesday 7 July
KO: 19:00 SAST / 18:00 UK / 21:00 Dubai  
Emirates Airline Park (Ellis Park), Johannesburg
Sky Sports Main Event

Referee: Jaco Peyper (SARU)
Assistant Referee 1: Wayne Barnes (RFU)
Assistant Referee 2: AJ Jacobs (SARU)
TMO: Marius van der Westhuizen (SARU)

TEAMS:

CELL C SHARKS:
1. Khwezi Mona
2. Fez Mbatha
3. Khutha Mchunu
4. Ruben van Heerden
5. Hyron Andrews
6. James Venter
7. Thembelani Bholi
8. Phepsi Buthelezi (c)

9. Jaden Hendrikse
10. Curwin Bosch
11. Thaakir Abrahams
12. Marius Louw
13. Jeremy Ward
14. Werner Kok
15. Manie Libbok

16. Kerron van Vuuren
17. Ntuthuko Mchunu
18. Wiehahn Herbst
19. JJ van der Mescht
20. Reniel Hugo
21. Dylan Richardson
22. Grant Williams
23. Anthony Volmink

BRITISH & IRISH LIONS:
15. Liam Williams (Scarlets, Wales) #833
14. Anthony Watson (Bath Rugby, England) #816
13. Elliot Daly (Saracens, England) #822
12. Bundee Aki (Connacht Rugby, Ireland) #837
11. Duhan van der Merwe (Worcester Warriors, Scotland) #841
10. Dan Biggar (Northampton Saints, Wales) #821
9. Gareth Davies (Scarlets, Wales) #850

1. Mako Vunipola (Saracens, England) #787
2. Luke Cowan-Dickie (Exeter Chiefs, England) #851
3. Zander Fagerson (Glasgow Warriors, Scotland) #848
4. Iain Henderson – Captain (Ulster Rugby, Ireland) #808
5. Adam Beard (Ospreys, Wales)
6. Josh Navidi (Cardiff Rugby, Wales)
7. Tom Curry (Sale Sharks, England)
8. Sam Simmonds (Exeter Chiefs, England) #849

16. Ken Owens (Scarlets, Wales) #829
17. Rory Sutherland (Worcester Warriors, Scotland) #840
18. Tadhg Furlong (Leinster Rugby, Ireland) #818
19. Tadhg Beirne (Munster Rugby, Ireland) #838
20. Jack Conan (Leinster Rugby, Ireland) #839
21. Conor Murray (Munster Rugby, Ireland) #790
22. Stuart Hogg (Exeter Chiefs, Scotland) #783
23. Chris Harris (Gloucester Rugby, Scotland) #844

COMMENTARY:

Does Farrell have to kick everything?

Its working

At last something sticks

Excellent try by the Sharks. Well played.

Good play from the Sharks, well dederved try

Quite a few Lions caught napping there.

Playing well - Dickie, Henderson, Curry, Farrell, Adams, Aki and VdMerwe.

Pot Hale wrote:Fagerson and Vunipola not sending signals for test selection.

Well mainly Vunipola in reality

26-7 to Lions.

These bloody wild passes

A classic Russell chip and Adams the poacher scores

Lol. Adams scoring them for fun at this point.

Duhan looks like some sort of comic book Ayrian super hero.

Did the commentator call Rhys Zammit "Rhys Lightning"? I like it.

It does help when you have so many sperdy wingers!

The Sharks just completely fall apart in possession, Bosch isn’t a quality player

Referee not allowing the Shakrs to pressurise the Lions rucks, but the Lions can go full blast at interrupting the Sharks ruck

That was a last man standing try!

Going to be checked, did Itoje knock it on?

Itoje fine but Aki in from the side

sorry, but Jaco peyper is refereeing the breakdown only one way

Great counter ruck from Sutherland and great hands from Daley, he has put down a marker!

Sutherland putting down a marker as well

DTH MoM

Josh Adams should probably have got it to be fair

Price not up to it. What a missed chance.

Sutherland looking lively - better than Vunipola. Hamish Watson has to start - he’s just so gnarly.

And Adams has his choice of position in the back three.

Nothing much wrong with Russell's kicking either!

Fair play Sharks. Put in a good game.

Pot Hale wrote:Price not up to it.  What a missed chance.  

Sutherland looking lively - better than Vunipola.  Hamish Watson has to start - he’s just so gnarly.

And Adams has his choice of position in the back three.

Bit harsh on Price, his second game in 4 days and did the whole 80 mins.

Ordinarily you would expect him to take that pass, but was likely blowing out of his ar#e

He otherwise had a decent game

Lions, too much power and too much pace. Sharks did themselves no favours with their naive play, can only hope they learnt something from this.

Pot Hale wrote:Price not up to it.  What a missed chance.  

Sutherland looking lively - better than Vunipola.  Hamish Watson has to start - he’s just so gnarly.

And Adams has his choice of position in the back three.

Think Price had a great game - really got the back line zipping all game

Things I Liked:

1. Our blitz defence - it really does seem to work and we have a lot of good jacklers who have clearly been told to look for turnovers. Simmons and Navidi were fast across the line all game.

2. Offloading game - Townsend has clearly been pushing this and it's been very effective - a lot of the wingers' tries have come from keeping the ball alive.

3. Bench depth - Sutherland and Furlong absolutely mashed the Sharks scrum when they came on. Sutherland made 2 key turnovers and had a 20 metre canter. Watson was as feisty as ever and showed great hands all game. We have good options and a spare in essentially all positions.

4. Luke Cowan Dickie - tons of fun, high energy and very versatile. He and George are the starting and bench hookers for me.

5. Elliot Daly and Josh Adams - sharp as scheize.

Things I'm A Bit Worried About

1. No real test yet - a standard complaint on Lions tours but the Sharks dropped 3 tries that I counted because of last second knock ons or slipped passes. None of the opposition has been remotely test class yet and we have got out of jail free just by being better athletes in the last quarter of the game.

2. LRZ's defence - it may be controversial because he can do no wrong in the eyes of some but I have to say it - I didn't see him make a solid, proper tackle all game and he shyed away from a couple of big hits. That will hurt us at test level.

3. I actually thought that Curry was a little underwhelming given the massive hype that seems to surround him all the time and also that Henderson and Simmonds had fairly quiet games on average. I'm sure that they worked hard but I need to watch the game again to check as I was expecting more from all of them.

4. Farrell was kind of quiet for 2 games in a row now. Need him to look more comfortable . I guess that given today must have been completely bonkers for the players, it's probably not fair to ask anyone to deliver a more settled performance than they did.

Official Lions website wrote:Simmonds made more carries (six) and more metres (30) than any other Lions forward in the first half, with only Adams (31m) and Elliot Daly (51m) making more ground.

The Exeter Chiefs No.8 didn’t shirk his defensive duties either, racking up eight tackles before the interval – a number only beaten by Lions skipper Iain Henderson among the tourists’ pack.

There we go then. Young Samwise did get through a power of work after all.

The 30 metres in 6 carries is slightly misleading: he had one carry of about 20 metres. Mind you, he had a good game and I think it's between him and Coman for the 8 jersey.
Mako V was poor. Sutherland was an improvement when he came on.
Fagerson did well but Furlong looks to be the test TH.
Itoje should start in the tests.
Hamish Watson looks absolutely in his element.
Would Coman-Simmonds-Watson work?
Adams-Hogg-Duhan to start the first test.
Centres are still anyone's guess.

Competition is just intense in some positions.

The back row, I think this might have been Curry's chance tonight and he probably did not take it. Watson has played his way in but Navidi, Lawes, Berne, Conan, Faletu (who has a bit to do) could easily join him. It is going to be the devils choice i think and some very worthy candidates will miss out at least for the first test but they may still get their chance over what is going to be a very atricious series.

The back three is going to be equally tough. I would like to think that Hogg has done enough in his audition to get the FB spot and it is hard to see past the arch poacher Adams for one of the wing spots. VDM, Williams, LRZ or Watson for the other spot. I don't know how you make that pick?

Finn Russell comprehensively put to bed the theory that he was a second rate option at goal kicking tonight, which seemed to be some pundits rationale for leaving him out. Farrell looked solid again, but not outstanding and may have got injured as well.

Daley has been quietly impressive in his runouts as well and is certainly making the most of his opportunities.

It is very pleasing to see how the whole squad are stepping up to the challenge though and you feel very confident that we will get a very decent side out for that first test.

A test side is slowly forming. Very entertaining but one sided match. I thought Adams was outstanding at fullback and has been fantastic in each match so far. Compared with the last two tours this squad seems to have much more to offer.

It was intriguing to see a half each from Farrell and Russell, Farrell looked great initially but as the game broke up I couldn’t help but feel he looked uncomfortable. It got a bit awkward and congested at times in attack. Where as Russell may lack the stability of Farrell at times but looks far more at home when the game loses structure. He proved a point with his goal kicking too.

I know that Covid is a factor (and maybe SA are playing a bit of rope-a-dope) but the two sides that the Lions have played have been truly awful. Hopefully better sides are coming up or the Lions are going to be seriously under-cooked. Unless SA are meh as well in which case it’s a bit of a damp squib. That’s if we get any further games ...

Jeezo that was a lot to catch up on this morning but sounds another good win, showing a lot of character after a bonkers day.

Of course the question now is what happens next? It's probably a good thing there's no game this weekend especially if a lot of the squad end up isolating.

If we can get the next two games before the tests it'll be a miracle! It's basically shown that when a group is getting towards 2 weeks together in South Africa Covid starts to find a way in.

Its not confirmed there is no game this weekend.

All they have said is that they are looking at alternative options.

They also seem to beleive that one of the positives is very dubious, so they might get some of the isolated players released quite quickly.

If they get the chance of a game, i am sure they will take it. To many plsyers still need a chance to give their case.

Pot Hale wrote:Price not up to it.  What a missed chance.  

Sutherland looking lively - better than Vunipola.  Hamish Watson has to start - he’s just so gnarly.

And Adams has his choice of position in the back three.

Price was arguably mom. Did you watch the game?

RDW wrote:If we can get the next two games before the tests it'll be a miracle! It's basically shown that when a group is getting towards 2 weeks together in South Africa Covid starts to find a way in.

With the cricketers having positive tests too, it's a miracle the football didn't see more than that case in the Scottish team.

Rugby Fan wrote:

RDW wrote:If we can get the next two games before the tests it'll be a miracle! It's basically shown that when a group is getting towards 2 weeks together in South Africa Covid starts to find a way in.

With the cricketers having positive tests too, it's a miracle the football didn't see more than that case in the Scottish team.

Yeah I'm really surprised about that too, particularly as Covid in rampant in the UK again. Sadly I'm sure it will be widespread throughout all the fans, especially as thousands of them have been travelling across Europe in the last few weeks! It's typically young people too, and many of them won't have had a vaccine yet. But that's a whole different debate.

Yet to watch the second half, much different from the first?

Austin Healey is calling on an early decision to bring the tests to Twickenham, allow fans in etc.

Sharks played much better, but made far too many errors, wild passes, their inexperience showed them up.

The tour to New Zealand threw up problems with the warm ups centred on the top NZ players being withdrawn and the games being too easy. These have just been frankly ridiculous. I'm starting to think that it would be much better to have the warm ups as all international teams, I'd imagine that fans would flock to see Lions vs Samoa, Lions vs France.

No 7&1/2 wrote:The tour to New Zealand threw up problems with the warm ups centred on the top NZ players being withdrawn and the games being too easy. These have just been frankly ridiculous. I'm starting to think that it would be much better to have the warm ups as all international teams, I'd imagine that fans would flock to see Lions vs Samoa, Lions vs France.

In normal times, the SA provincial teams would have put up a stronger challenge. In most recent tours, The Lions have lost one of their warm up games I seem to remember, we did last time in NZ as well.

All of these team have played very little and are undercooked, The Lions have a massive advantage in having had a long season of competitive rugby behind them and that is Covid's fault really, not SA's. This is in no way a normal Lions tour.


I think if you are going to change the concept of the Lions to the point of taking out all the warm up games, then you are likely going to lose what the Lions are all about and that would be a shame.

It is a valid question though, but maybe not best judged on this tour.

It is a difficult one, looking at the previous two Lions tours to SA, the results in 1997 was much more competitive.

The average score in 1997 against the four major provinces was 32-20 with a loss to the Bulls

The average score in 2009 against the three major provinces plus Cheetahs (they didn’t play the Bulls) was 41- 15. There was a massive blow out against the Lions though 74- 10

So there has been a deterioration of performance by the SA provinces, I recall in 2009 the Springboks didn’t play in those warm ups.

I think not having the Springboks be part of the warm ups is a detriment to the tour, but I don’t think that is the only reason, SA rugby depth is currently under pressure with Covid enforcing bubbles, as well as the sheer number of talent not playing domestically anymore.

Consider a Sharks team with its Springboks.

15 Aphilile Fassi
14 S’Bu Nkosi
13 Lokyano Am
11 Makazolo Mapimpi
9 Sanele Nohamba
1 Ox Nche
3 Thomas di Toit
6 Siya Kolisi

That is a lot of talent missing.

Ouside of the covid situation, which is a crap-shoot, who are the players that held their hands up so far

FB - unsure. Nobody has let themselves down but then again nobody has risen above the others, it's still Hoggs shirt to lose
15 Hogg
Wings - Watson was almost nailed on prior to take off but now I think he is back of the queue, Adams is there or thereabouts and DvdM has put himself in the starting line up. Only issue is they both play left wing, so I would put Adams 14, DvdM 11 with Williams covering 15,14,11 off the bench
14 Adams 11 DvdM
Centres
I think Aki has faded in both matches so I can see him only as an impact off the bench. Both Harris and Daly have had good starts with Daly defending better than expected and Harris attacking better than expected, unfortunately I can see one starting and one been left out altogether
Daly 13 Henshaw 12
Halfbacks
FH - I don't think Farrell or Russell have done enough so far, although Farrell had his best game so far and Finn proved the doubters wrong on his kicking. Biggars' shirt to lose
SH - Price had a very good game, lots of energy and a great link between forwards and backs
10 Biggar 9 Price
8 - Been disappointed with Faletau, but saying that Conan and Simmonds haven't done enough yet to have snatched the jersey. I think Curry could come into the equation
8 Curry
7 - Curry decent defence but didn't convince going forward, Watson came on and you could see the difference
7 Watson
6 - Lawes / Beirne have both had great games and now Navidi 16 tackles, couple of T/Os and MOTM in some tabloids. Too close to call but Gats might need some ballast in the BR so might go Beirne or Lawes
6 Beirne
5 - Henderson
4 - No-one has really put their hand up, if it was me I would put Beirne in at lock with Lawes or Navidi at 6 but I think Gats will go Itoje
4 Itoje
FR - Vunipola and Fagerson have almost played themselves out, George/LCD/Owens all have played well. Sinckler very good
1 Jones 2 TBA 3 Furlong

There's a number of players needing a second game (or a first in some cases!) before being able to pencil in the test team I reckon. Hopefully they can get it this weekend.

Some players also desperately need a rest having played a lot in the last 10 games - hope they get it!

Assume Anthony Watson was one of those in isolation as he was due to start this game wasn't he? Shame for him, he's barely got any time yet and probably unlikely to have much more now.

The others in isolation have all had a bit of game time prior to this match, but feel for Watson

Same for Davies - this was meant to be his start