The MTN Lions hosted the Toyota Cheetahs Friday evening at Coca-Cola Park, Johannesburg in their last home game before heading off on an Australasian tour.

In a match that the Lions players, management, staff and I’m sure all of their spectators both at the ground as well as watching on television would in all likelihood want to forget as soon as possible, they were handed a Rugby lesson by their once Super Rugby partners from Bloemfontein.

The game started with the Cheetahs flyhalf, Sias Ebersohn, slotting a penalty for the visitors as early as the 2nd minute, and another some minutes later before the home side could get on the board with a well worked try by the hard working Josh Strauss which was converted by Burton Francis.

Another penalty by Eberson on the stroke of the quarter hour saw the visitors once again leading, but in the minutes that follows occured an incident that literally summed up the Lions night.

After good work and interplay between forwards and backs, Strauss again crossed the whitewash, but with the attention of the visitor’s defence on him managed only to lose the ball over the line and the chance went a begging.

From then on, the half belonged to the visitors.

Whilst the two forward packs looked quite even at scrum time that is where the contest ended. The Lions line out was poor, as it seems to have been for the last 3 years, the loose forwards always seemed to be a yard too slow getting to the loose ball, and seemed to be unable to clear the opposition away at the rucks and mauls, while the backline made numerous juvenile handling errors, slipped tackles and generally were not in the game.

In contrast the visitors from Bloemfontein were sharp and focused.

Captain Adriaan Strauss had another massive game, Ashley Johnson seemed to be everywhere, and the halfbacks and three quarters ran hard and handled the ball superbly, seemingly with the Lions having no answers.

The visitors were rewarded with 3 tries in the last 10 minutes of the half with the last, a breathtaking example of three quarter running Rugby coming after the hooter had sounded for the break.

It must be added though that they were denied a further 2 tries by the TMO, both of which appeared good from where I was sitting as well as on the big screen replays shown at the ground.

The Lions went into the changeroom a seemingly beaten side whilst the Cheetahs chose to stay on the field.

Halftime: MTN Lions 7 – 36 Toyota Cheetahs.

The second half saw a far better effort by the Lions who only conceded a single penalty in the 15 minutes immediately after the break, and saw them stringing several multi-phase movements together only to see them come to an end with sloppy handling or infringements resulting in Cheetahs penalties.

The rest of the half saw both sides score a brace of tries with the Lions scoring the last some 4 minutes after the final hooter.

Final Score: MTN Lions 19 – 53 Toyota Cheetahs.

All in all it was a very polished display by the Cheetahs who have now scored 147 points in their last 3 games and must surely be looking forward to playing 4 of their last 5 games at home in Bloemfontein, even if one of them is against the Crusaders.

The Lions on the other hand are firmly entrenched at the bottom of the table, and embark on their overseas tour at what must be an emotional low point.

Lions coach John Mitchell was somewhat philosophical about the result, admitting that the first half display was easily the worst of the season. He (Mitchell) stated that perhaps the tour is the best thing that could happen for the team right now, taking them out of the losing enviroment that is Coca-Cola Park and into a space where as a group of young men they can start to learn a bit more about one another and themselves.

Mitchell praised the Cheetahs for their style of play and accurate execution of the game plan.

Naka Drotske was obviously delighted with the teams’ performance but reiterated that there was still work to be done on tightening up the defence.

Man Of The Match went to Sias Ebersohn who had a flawless kicking display on the night, slotting nine out of nine. How Mitchell must be wishing he had a kicker of that quality to take “down under”.

Crowd attendance was 15 403, and the next game at Coca-Cola Park is only on Saturday 11th June when the Lions take on the Sharks in their last game of the Super Rugby campaign.