NPR

JM2K6 wrote: ↑Wed Aug 11, 2021 12:07 pm

FalseBayFC wrote: ↑Wed Aug 11, 2021 11:53 am

JM2K6 wrote: ↑Wed Aug 11, 2021 10:57 am

Sorry, am I the only one who thinks the Lions pack did an excellent job in the final Test? Plenty of possession and territory thanks to their efforts. If the SA pack was so superior I'd have expected them to get somewhere close to parity of possession at the very least, and not miss as many tackles as they did, or cough up a maul try, or not be so shite at their own lineouts.

The Lions were lucky to have 1) played all 3 tests at Cape Town stadium. They would have been minced at altitude on the harder pitches.
2) Played the Boks minus PSDT and Faf for 2 matches, Duane Vermeulen and RG Snyman. 3. The Boks had a shocking build up. And many of them (those playing in the SA domestic league) have had very little top class rugby for over a year.

The playing surface made scrummaging a bit difficult and would have been closer to Northern Hemisphere conditions.

I thought Itoje was great .But I would play him at blindside flanker every day. Him and Furlong were my two Lions forwards of the series. The guy has a great engine and covers huge amounts of ground. But he is no Retallick or Etzebeth and doesn't have a huge impact when the game gets really tight.

OK well in these hypothetical games against a different pack in a different location with a different build up, I'm sure it would have been different.

FalseBayFC wrote: ↑Wed Aug 11, 2021 12:35 pm
It was a strange series. No one pack really had a sustained period of dominance. To be honest I thought we'd have done a lot better up front than we did.

JM2K6 wrote: ↑Wed Aug 11, 2021 10:57 am

clydecloggie wrote: ↑Wed Aug 11, 2021 8:59 am A forward as best Lion of the series is a bit odd, as that essentially means the 9th-best forward on the pitch was the best Lion.

Couldn't really give it to a back, of course, as the first time they saw the ball was in the 12th minute of the 3rd Test.

So by that process of elimination, probably Ali Price should have got it.

Itoje was utterly brilliant in Test 1, no discussion about that; when the Boks were still rusty enough to be well below par.

Silver lining: my long-standing (2017) avatar fully vindicated.

Sorry, am I the only one who thinks the Lions pack did an excellent job in the final Test? Plenty of possession and territory thanks to their efforts. If the SA pack was so superior I'd have expected them to get somewhere close to parity of possession at the very least, and not miss as many tackles as they did, or cough up a maul try, or not be so shite at their own lineouts.

clydecloggie wrote: ↑Wed Aug 11, 2021 3:00 pm

JM2K6 wrote: ↑Wed Aug 11, 2021 10:57 am

clydecloggie wrote: ↑Wed Aug 11, 2021 8:59 am A forward as best Lion of the series is a bit odd, as that essentially means the 9th-best forward on the pitch was the best Lion.

Couldn't really give it to a back, of course, as the first time they saw the ball was in the 12th minute of the 3rd Test.

So by that process of elimination, probably Ali Price should have got it.

Itoje was utterly brilliant in Test 1, no discussion about that; when the Boks were still rusty enough to be well below par.

Silver lining: my long-standing (2017) avatar fully vindicated.

Sorry, am I the only one who thinks the Lions pack did an excellent job in the final Test? Plenty of possession and territory thanks to their efforts. If the SA pack was so superior I'd have expected them to get somewhere close to parity of possession at the very least, and not miss as many tackles as they did, or cough up a maul try, or not be so shite at their own lineouts.

They were on top for 30 minutes in the 1st Test, after SA ran out of steam, were nowhere in the 2nd Test, and sort of achieved par in Test 3 without worrying SA too much - all the danger came from Finn Russell showing how playing off 10 works.

So I wasn't too impressed with the Lions pack. Although it has to be said the stupidity of Gatland's gameplan trying to outBok the Boks was the prime reason for that. With a bit more creativity and varying the point of contact the Lions could have asked much more difficult questions of the Bok pack

JM2K6 wrote: ↑Wed Aug 11, 2021 4:11 pm

clydecloggie wrote: ↑Wed Aug 11, 2021 3:00 pm

JM2K6 wrote: ↑Wed Aug 11, 2021 10:57 am

Sorry, am I the only one who thinks the Lions pack did an excellent job in the final Test? Plenty of possession and territory thanks to their efforts. If the SA pack was so superior I'd have expected them to get somewhere close to parity of possession at the very least, and not miss as many tackles as they did, or cough up a maul try, or not be so shite at their own lineouts.

They were on top for 30 minutes in the 1st Test, after SA ran out of steam, were nowhere in the 2nd Test, and sort of achieved par in Test 3 without worrying SA too much - all the danger came from Finn Russell showing how playing off 10 works.

So I wasn't too impressed with the Lions pack. Although it has to be said the stupidity of Gatland's gameplan trying to outBok the Boks was the prime reason for that. With a bit more creativity and varying the point of contact the Lions could have asked much more difficult questions of the Bok pack

Sort of achieved par is giving Russell tons of ball? Forcing SA to play on the back foot for the majority of the game? A match where the problem was chances being blown by individual errors, where the only try came from the Lions pack stuffing the Saffers back over their own line? Where the entire starting pack missed fewer tackles than Mostert and Etzebeth managed on their own? Where the SA lineout was a bit of a shambles? Where a single Lion - Itoje - made more metres than the entire SA starting pack combined? Where the Lions ended the match with 63% possession and 63% territory?

That's a fair bit better than "sort of achieved par".

The story of the 3rd Test is one of blown opportunities by a side that dominated almost everywhere except the scoreboard and the scrum.