Highlanders bring the pain to thwart wounded Lions

HIGHLANDERS 23 - LIONS 22: The British & Irish Lions might have hoped to have left Dunedin’s “House of Pain” behind them when the Otago Rugby Union shut the gates on their old stadium at Carisbrook. 

Yet the hurt followed the tourists across town yesterday as the Highlanders inflicted a second defeat in four games at the start of this New Zealand tour.

Just three wins over the Otago provincial side in eight visits to Carisbrook since 1950 and two Test defeats of the All Blacks in six attempts over the same period had marked the old place out as a graveyard for the combined talents of the four nations but the move to the covered Forsyth Barr Stadium did not prove to be a successful cure as the 2017 Lions threw away their shot at victory yesterday.