Golden Lions Vs British & Irish Lions
Final Score: Golden Lions 10-74 Lions
We must now rethink the possible cause of saturday’s weak performance. Perhaps it was the altitude or maybe it was simply that the combinations didn’t work. What is much harder, in the light of last night’s Lions game, is too suggest it was simply lack of cohesion or ‘gelling’ that would come with time.
The British & Irish Lions team that played last night, and thumped a poor Golden Lions side, had little or no more reason to ‘gel’ than the team who played on Saturday. But they were superb. Some will suggest that the opponents were too weak to expect anything – but you can only play what is in front of you and the Lions played well for 80 minutes. They even finished the game with 14 men after Ugo Monye (who had a, largely, suberb game) went of injured at 70 minutes.
It certainly is true that the Golden Lions didn’t really offer very much; as it is also true that the Royal XV played with a lot of heart. But the Lions (B & I) linked extremely well, offloaded well, tackled well and simply dominated in very way.
It’s far from a reason to think we’ll win the test series, but it may mean we get a clearer idea of the test side a bit earlier than expected. That can only help.