Former Lion Lawrence Dallaglio, writing in the Times, believes that despite going down in the first test match to the Springboks the Lions showed enough in the second half in Durban to take the Boks on in Pretoria.
"IT WAS a Test match that the Lions lost in the first 10 minutes. Even now, an hour after the end of the game, I feel a little sick and shellshocked about John Smit being able to waltz over for that first try. What was it, six or seven minutes, and they haven’t done much but they have seven points on the board. I couldn’t believe that the Lions would start as tamely as they did.
We had promised ourselves we would be brutally physical, that we would not lose that battle. We knew the South Africans were short of match practice, that they wouldn’t have the sharpness that comes from playing serious matches, and that we had to strike early. The opposite happened.
We didn’t stop them on the gainline, we allowed them to ease their way back into Test rugby. We allowed them to boss us at the lineout, at the scrum and at the breakdown. We were brutalised in the first 50 minutes and they demonstrated a lot of power and precision. Their second try, scored by Heinrich Brussow, followed an awesome show of mauling power from their big pack."
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