THE LIONS WERE held to a draw in their last midweek match of the tour to New Zealand as the Hurricanes rallied to claim a 31 – 31 share of the spoils. Here’s how we rated Warren Gatland’s midweek men.
Leigh Halfpenny: 4
Drafted into the 23 as a last minute replacement for Jared Payne and then introduced as Robbie Henshaw’s replacement in the first half. We can understand his reasons for never looking very comfortable in this game. With the Lions trying to play a running game his counter-attacking efforts were weak and soon his kicking suffered too. Dropped a late high ball that could have cost his team.
Tommy Seymour: 6
Intercept tries are usually pretty fortunate events, but Seymour certainly played his part in creating the score as he shunted in to Otere Black make him force the pass which Laidlaw picked off. His second score made him the leading try-scorer on this tour.
Jonathan Joseph: 5
An extremely quiet day for a man widely touted as a Test starter before the tour. Got through a decent shift defensively, but his most impactful moment on the game was arguably the role he played in the Iain Henderson tip tackle.
George North: 5
Shifted into the centre midway through the first half with Robbie Henshaw injured. The ‘Canes constantly looked to exploit his unfamiliarity with midfield and successfully did so moments after the restart for Ngani Laumape’s try.
Jack Nowell: 5
Looked pumped and ready to compete for a Test place while at fullback and worked hard in every engagement including a nice hit to stop Julian Savea. The reshuffle disrupted his rhythm though and his impact was limited thereafter.
Dan Biggar: 6
Bar one missed touch in the first half and getting run over by Ngani Laumape, it was a good day for the Osprey. Looked sharp and purposeful with the ball in hand as the Lions tried to play an up-tempo, expansive game. Late drop-goal fell short, but from that distance it was always a gamble.
Greig Laidlaw: 6
His best performance of the tour by some distance. Excellent intercept and assist for the opening try and marshalled his pack well with good service to boost Biggar.
Joe Marler: 6
Got through a very good day’s work in the loose with 10 tackles, eight carries in traffic and ensured a steady day at the scrum.
Rory Best: 7
You don’t often see Rory Best angry. He’s a man who keeps control, but he used his captaincy privileges to let his temper flare at Te Toiroa Tahuriorangi after his post-try gloating slap on Dan Biggar (who was clearly uncomfortable as the medics were ready to put him through a HIA). Had a quietly efficient game, imposing himself at the breakdown, maintaining a 100% line-out and putting in 14 tackles for good measure — only Justin Tipuric had more.
Dan Cole: 6
The tighthead played 80 minutes last week and looked like the fitness trial did him the power of good. Looked sprightly for the first hour before the wear and tear of Gatland’s reluctance to use replacements took its toll on everyone.
Iain Henderson: 8
The best forward on the park. Carried well in tight situations, but also proved very effective at the choke and breakdown. His mobility brought him chasing Biggar’s high ball and he showed lovely hands to slip it away to give George North an easy finish.
His tip tackle with 15 minutes remaining was an ugly moment though, and he was fortunate the player landed on his shoulder. A head impact would have been an automatic red. The Canes didn’t miss their chance to come back in his absence.
Returned to lend his power to an excellent late maul that crucially took the Hurricanes out of scoring range.
Courtney Lawes: 8
Didn’t quite cover the ground that Henderson did, but certainly put in a big shift of work at set-piece and in defence. Replaced by last week’s Test starter George Kruis after 54, which would suggest Gatland wants him playing on the Westpac turf again on Saturday.
James Haskell: 6
Looked as tired as anyone come the end, but he had good reason to be after throwing his weight about for 14 tackles and 10 carries.
Justin Tipuric: 7
Always overshadowed by someone in a Gatland tour, but his performance is remarkably consistent. Got through a Trojan 20 tackles and was an absolute pest at the Hurricanes breakdown, crucial in stunting their efforts to unleashing that stellar back-line.
CJ Stander: 7
Did all the relentless ball-carrying you’d expect of a man called CJ Stander and also lent his weight to impact the breakdown and maul.
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“upset the natural flow of the game”. can’t agree with that. you have lads throwing themselves on the ground left, right and centre which is far more disruptive in my opinion, especially in the bigger knockout games when they’re a goal up. sure they had water breaks in some matches in the last World Cup which went by almost unnoticed. time for the video ref.
Also it should be easy enough to moderate the use of video techology. I.e limit the number of times it can be referred to in a game…. each coach can call for a video replay three times and no more!
About time but I would rather see it use for cheating and simulation
You can nearly tell by looking up that Barcaloni19 page on youtube that you would get 9/11 conspiracy clips in the suggested videos. Short memories, he seems to forget the second leg at Stamford Bridge only the year before.
All club have been stung over the years by bad decisions but when it’s costs a team a trophy/promotion or indeed regelation it can be hard to swallow .
If ever there was a club that benefited from extremely dubious refereeing, Barcelona is it.
The farce at Stamford Bridge
The Thiago Motta red card with Busquets peeking through his hands to see if he could stop rolling around yet
Van Persie’s second yellow for playing the ball after as the whistle was blown
And then from this tie, the Suarez non-red, the Iniesta non-red and the Torres sending off.
You lost all credibility when you said Torres was harshly sent off last week.
In that inter game the goal Barcelona got was actually offside so if they had video ref back then that goal wouldn’t have stood, and also the ridiculous motta red card would never have happened
They weren’t in the video so clearly didn’t happen.
3 for the manager is too many. Its been in hockey for a few years at the high level and only now is it really a very good system without issue of bias or unfair advantage. Currently, each team has one video refferral, which they keep if they are proven correct or in the case of “no decision possible”. When the team refers and they are mistaken, they lose the referral. Teams must refer immediately after the incident (within 3 seconds i think) and it has to be close to a goalscoring event (can’t be at midfield). It goes upstairs to a ref who avails of different camera replays. There are still instances when cameras don’t pick up the incident or it is unclear what happened although football games have so many cameras this might not be an issue. Also, there are still complaints to referees even after video referrals! In football there would be issues surrounding interpretation – handball/ball to hand for instance but these would simply have to be cleared up by rules committees. I think aswell that referees own referrals would be useful but in rugby these are taken too much in my opinion. The system works well, there is usually 3 or 4 refferals a game and they are swift and exciting. I think it would work. 6 a game would be hefty and would lead to a scenario whereby there would be a refferal by a winning defensive team over a free kick the last minute purely to waste time/stop momentum type of thing. This is not attractive to see.
Trust no one
Didn’t need last night to prove this. Just the last 30 years of diving, cheating, handballs etc etc etc