Mauled Lions to change front row
Neither was Rowntree satisfied with the quality of defence in the face of South Africa’s driving maul. Qualifying for one of the tour’s great understatements, the England man declared: “That, allied to the problems we encountered in the scrum, gave us a bit of a mountain to climb.”
Rowntree accepted that the changes made to the front row, the introduction of Adam Jones for Phil Vickery and of Matthew Rees for Lee Mears, sorted out the scrum problem.
“Phil (Vickery) is a very honest guy and by his own admission, he struggled. He is upset. He is sore this morning physically and mentally. It is not about hanging individuals out to dry. It is a collective thing and that is where I come in. I have to look at what went wrong.
“There were eight scrum occasions in that first half, (and in) three of which we were penalised. That put us nine points down. We will be looking very hard at those scrums where we looked so vulnerable.
“We will have to look very hard at those scrums in which we had difficulties; in fact we will be looking at all aspects of our inability to win and control possession during the first half.
“We could blame the referee but I’m not going down that route. We asked him to reward the dominant scrum and unfortunately ours wasn’t the dominant scrum. At the time of engagement, they were quite legal; whatever happened afterwards might have been slightly questionable but I’m not getting into a slanging match about illegalities; we will just take that one on the cheek and rectify the problem for next week. Fortunately, I believe we have the personnel to rectify it,” he said.
Head coach Ian McGeechan will, however, be seeking clarification about what way the scrum will be refereed next week from French referee Christophe Berdos. “We will view that and try to make sense of some of those decisions, try to get some explanation from them (the referees); obviously it is important for us to know. What happened came down to interpretation and that’s why we need clarification. The penalty count in the first half and early part of the second spell actually killed us.”
Both O’Connell and McGeechan are confident of being able to rescue the series, the captain noting: “When we played as we wanted to, we played well and created lots of scoring opportunities. Had we not played well, we would be in a different situation now but I think we can take encouragement from some of the very good rugby we produced. The guys will be looking forward to next week.
“Even at half time, despite giving away those penalties, we felt happy with what we were doing when we had the ball; we knew what we wanted to do, so we will believe in ourselves for next week.”
McGeechan conceded that the failure to take opportunities was as damaging as the concession of penalties. “Playing South Africa at home in a Test match, you have to take the chances that are presented. The disappointing thing about losing is that I believe we played very well for the most part; our scoring opportunities were not confined to a brief spell but they were spread out over the 80 minutes. That is a positive sign from my point of view.
“Some of the quality of rugby they played was outstanding and it’s just a pity that we lost those scoring chances.”
McGeechan has found himself in a similarly difficult predicament, having watched the 1989 Lions team lose the first Test to Australia before going on to win the series.
“Had we put in a poor performance, had the South Africans outplayed us then of course I would be worried.
The fact is that we played well and there were enough signs to believe we can win next week and the week after. There are things we have to improve upon, of course, but everyone should be encouraged on the back of that performance and I believe it will be a very competitive Test match again next week. There is no reason why we cannot turn it around.”
The Springbok coach Peter de Villiers is worried too: “It takes a very good team to do what they did in coming back from such a score gap. They had us worried. We will have to look at ways of tightening up our defence. Their midfield combination certainly asked many questions of us and it is something we feel we will have to improve upon.”
De Villiers had no argument from a relieved second row Victor Matfield. “I was surprised at the way they came back at us so strongly. I thought at 26-7 we had them on the ropes, but they seemed to get stronger under the weight of the challenge.
“We were glad to play down the clock because we were under lots of pressure.
“It’s something we have to be fearful of for next week and the goal now is to produce a much better performance and close off this series.”
For McGeechan there are issues to be dealt with too and selection will be key for this week. Obviously he has to give serious consideration to selecting prop Jones, given his management of The Beast, while Ugo Monye and Stephen Jones will be the two other players under most pressure.
Monye fluffed a second-half scoring opportunity while Jones missed two easy penalty chances at a crucial early part of the game and didn’t ever appear to get the best of the men outside him. Shane Williams or Luke Fitzgerald for the wing position and Ronan O’Gara for out half would be the obvious contenders.
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