Lions v Cheetahs

This was a frustrating match to watch. I watched it with a South African friend who was also frustrated.

The Lions after their performance on Wednesday should have shone, but didn't. Whilst the match was going on there were two obvious problems.

Firstly there was no fetcher - no one like McCaw, Martyn Williams etc. This meant, after the Cheetahs settled in to the game at least, that they could slow the ball down at the contact area most of the time, and force the Lions into giving up penalties. This they duly did, and Hook (who had sparkled with faster ball) fell back into having fewer choices. One level I'm pleased for him, because he showed he can play that kick-the-corners dull, slow game if needed - something that was lacking a year ago, but it did make for a dull game. I'm not going to blame anyone beyond Geech for no fetcher - when Martyn Williams pulled out, Worsely is NOT the ideal replacement. He's a blind-side that can switch to open, but he's not a fetcher. When he's played open-side he's either had an even better blind-side (Betsen) playing, and a fetcher at 8, or a fetcher at 6 instead of 7.

The other thing - where were the offloads? OK, Shane offloaded and gave away an intercept try, but Williams, Hook, and Byrne were the only players looking for the offloads. Earls didn't, Fitzgerald didn't, Halfpenny didn't (but he was fixed out on the wing without players outside him, so less problem there). But it made defending easier because the Cheetahs could just hit the player and know there would be no change to the point of attack - makes the defence pretty easy you'd think, and as it showed. And, to go back to point one, after the tackle, because the Cheetahs knew there wasn't going to be an offload and there was no fetcher they could flood in and slow everything down, and even turn the ball over. If you can't recycle the ball quickly for whatever reason, surely it's not the work of genius to work out you don't give collision areas? Wales won a grand slam doing that after all!