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Lions Diary - Port Elizabeth Tuesday 16th June
By Oldmanofdorset
June 19 2009
Many Bath supporters are enjoying their tour of South Africa to follow the Lions. Oldmanofdorset is writing a tour blog of his experiences and sharing them with ERE.

Southern Kings 8 – 20 British & Irish Lions

Arrived here from Cape Town to be met with bright sunshine and warm temperature (about 23C). Port Elizabeth is a mixture of working port (best avoided) and an old fashioned seaside town with promenade beach and a new Boardwalk with shops and restaurants. Only problem on a rugby tour is a shortage of late night bars, however one on the front provides a magnet for all the travelling fans and some TV pundits. Dewi Morris having a quiet drink and talking to fans - predicts a win for the Lions in the First Test.

The match is at the brand new Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium and this is the first game played there. A beautiful modern stadium that seats 44,000 with a little finishing still needed. On the plus side the Stadium serves beer but hasn’t learnt to cope with thirsty rugby fans – gives the liver a rest anyway.The 16th June is a public holiday here – Youth Day which commemorates the start of School Strikes in Soweto in 1976 when hundreds of school children were killed by the security services. The holiday and warm weather ensured the biggest crowd of the tour so far with 35,000 in the ground. Only the match day team have travelled to Port Elizabeth with 10 players going direct to Durban which indicates who is likely to start in the test on Saturday (Lee Mears looking favourite to start with all but a few die hard Welsh fans).

Not the best game on our tour as the Lions seem strangely dis-interested in the game even though there must be match day places up for grabs – only 10 have gone to Durban so there are 12 spaces in the squad available. There appears to be little intensity in the majority of the team which had little to do with the physicality of the opposition.

This was the first ever game for the Southern Kings who are candidates for a franchise as a Super 14 Team. However as it stands the invitational team includes some GP players, some former Spingboks and some South African sevens player. Mike Catt who is from Port Elizabeth was invited to play but is not in the squad.The Lions were immediately dominant in the scrum with Sheridan and Murray looking very strong but the good ball was met with an aggressive and physical defence from the Southern Kings. The Kings were to pose little attacking threat and it was immediately obvious that they would counter the Lions with aggression which often over stepped the mark with late tackles and cheap hits. This was to see the early substitution of James Hook who was hit in the head by a late follow up tackle.

The combination of aggressive defence, poor Lions line out (it was very windy) and poor passing saw the score only 3 -3 at half time. Early in the second half a ROG penalty was followed by an over hit cross field kick which still goes behind the Kings defence and Monye showing good speed and good concentration keeps his eye on the ball and wins the scramble to touch the ball down. Dominant scrum work ultimately ended in a penalty try (local TV thought it was controversial a good indication of balanced local reporting) and the game was sealed though the Kings did score a late try in the corner.

Andy Powell had a reasonable first half and is now starting to run into space more often though he was still stripped in contact a couple of times. Sheridan and Adam Jones had strong games in the set piece but weren’t that active around the pitch and Euam Murray went off injured which is likely to leave Daisy with a starting place next to Mearsy. Worsley tackled well again but was playing at open-side and wasn’t fast enough in the breakdown. Monye will have slightly improved his chances but the first test will be his third game in seven days. Otherwise there was no one really staking a claim for a position.

Never the less this was the sixth straight win and needed celebrating in the normal style. The Lions were straight off to Durban after the game to be followed by us and a few other fans the next day. The atmosphere down here is building and more Lions’ fans are in evidence at each game.Stand out fans so far are the Irish lads supporting Tommy Bowe with a 40 foot replica shirt that is signed by everyone they meet. The Bucknell BaaBaa’s dressed as Elvis (all 20 of them) some of whom played British Bulldogs with security on the Newlands pitch – not to be encouraged of course but it was in good humour (apart from the guy who was caught and spent a night in the cells) and was funny. Bring on the Boks. At Port Elizabeth they are dressed as Welsh Guards with the Tour Virgins making a good impression as settler women.Looking forward to the first Test.   (Lee enjoys the surf)

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