South Africa A vs British and Irish Lions

[Scotty]

Farrell

No EJ and he still kicks! Constantly!

 

[Scotty]

Not coping with the physicality for the first 20 min massivly hurt us.

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

Players who improved their chances
Itoje
Curry
Harris

Players who made their chances worse
Farrell (massively)
Murray
Faletau
LRZ

 

[Dean Cooperfield-West]

Where?
I was honestly watching him to see what the hype is
Made three tackles, 1 carry for 0 metres, gave away two penalties

He essentially stopped three line out mauls with Itoje

 

[Protalus rampart]

Players who improved their chances
Itoje
Curry
Harris

Players who made their chances worse
Farrell (massively)
Murray
Faletau
LRZ

Although replacements I think Daly and Beard did a cracking job when they came on too

 

[General Melchett]

Players who improved their chances
Itoje
Curry
Harris

Players who made their chances worse
Farrell (massively)
Murray
Faletau
LRZ

The test half back pairing should be Price and Biggar IMO. They need to play together on Saturday,

 

[General Melchett]

Sanjay could be out on Saturday depending on his HIA. Hard to see him being involved in the tests now. Hogg, Adams and DVDM to start this weekend I reckon

 

[Dean Cooperfield-West]

Liked Nigel Owens as a commentator. All he seemed to say was "... was incredibly unlucky there" and "Peyper is being incredibly harsh there...."

I don't know much about the intricacies of the rules but it does make you wonder how the match would have played out had the ref been neutral

 

[Groundhog]

Missed second half, how crap were the Lions?

 

[Umaga's Witness]

For all the talk about the excessive riches in the lions loose forwards, its nit going to be too hard to pick the four loosies for the 23, harder if they want to pick a fifth because who would it be? Could hardly say faletau, navidi, simmonds, lawes, deserve to be in the 23

 

[saulan]

Happy with that. We needed the match practice. There's some positive that 10 of our points conceded came when we were 13-14 players on the field. Defense is still immense. After that it just turned into an arm wrestle and playing a territory game. Overall I think we had the better kicking game in the first half and the Lions has a slightly better one in the second half (were winning a lot of contestable kicks).

Lions didn't bother to commit bodies to the rucks in the first half and I feel the intensity of the hits/physicality may have caught them off guard.

Don't think Peyper did too bad a job, I was getting frustrating with him not calling cynical play and weakly policing the breakdown, but I'm sure Lions supporters had their own gripes with him.

 

[Welsh Exile]

I enjoyed that even though it was a **** game. First half was so tentative and clearly didn't want to reveal much/feeling each other out (oh matron) but at least we 100% know that Biggar is starting 10.

9 remains a concern, though. Curry was brilliant. Itoje very good. Mako showed he can do a job for 20 mins or so. Hope Wyn Jones is alright obviously. Lots of other stuff but had a few and will need to watch it back. A lot more to come from both sides which is the exciting thing for the series.

Such a shame there's no crowd even though we would've probably lost by more but it's not the same. Actually it's ******* ****.

 

[saulan]

One last thing to note, we once again played the territory game well. That second half after it went to 17-13 I felt we constantly were playing in the Lions half and the Lions never really felt like scoring

 

[Scotty]

Big fan of Simmonds, great prem player but has been totally anonymous.

 

[AlRums]

The test half back pairing should be Price and Biggar IMO. They need to play together on Saturday,

Yes, but will say Murray did a lot better today

 

[AlRums]

Missed second half, how crap were the Lions?

Not quite as crap as the first half

 

[Umaga's Witness]

Big fan of Simmonds, great prem player but has been totally anonymous.

Clearly gatland has a boner for him, so he could still be a chance, though im not sure how long gatland can sustain his boner

 

[General Melchett]

WTF - ROG has Mako in his starting 15. WTF!!! HIA for ROG

 

[ncurd]

So I see Farrell didn't magically gain form....quelled
surprise.

 

[Welsh Exile]

WTF - ROG has Mako in his starting 15. WTF!!! HIA for ROG

To be fair I really, really like ROG, but a couple of days ago he said Farrell sees the space better than Biggar.