Rose leads Lions' charge

2008-07-04 21:33

Johannesburg - The Lions' first Currie Cup win of 2008 was what the match at Coca-Cola Park dished up for the sparse crowd in the Lions' 35-23 victory over the Falcons.

Leading the charge was fullback Earl Rose, who scored three tries and 30 points in total in a good display of running rugby.

Although this bonus point win will be a real confidence-booster for the Lions, there is still much work to do if they want to make it to the play-offs.

With a surfeit of ball - especially in the first half - the home team played frantic, at times frenetic, rugby. It was pleasant and exciting enough to watch, but again too much good ball was kicked away, too many wrong options taken and too many passes didn't go to hand. There were also a few occasions early on when missed tackles nearly let the Falcons in.

Nearly scored from own tryline

A try was gifted to the Falcons when Rose had a kick charged down with Walter Venter missing Dewald Pretorius near the goalline for the Falcons to score. And just before halftime the Falcons nearly scored from their own tryline after an interception.

The Lions coaching staff will also not have been overly impressed with their side's scrummaging. There is the excuse, of course, that it was a revamped front row with two new faces and a switch from their previous outing that hadn't scrummed together as a unit.

The score of 18-8 to the Lions at the break could have been much closer.

Jacques Schutte had one of those nights on the first half and eight missed points would have had the visitors very much in the game. But in fairness, the Lions were probably good value for the lead by virtue of their possession.

Big wing Dewald Pretorius had a good debut for the Falcons.

Battling to contain Falcons

He scored an excellent try and set up another one when he twice broke through the Lions defence for Rouhan Cloete's try 10 minutes into the second half. With Schutte at last finding his direction the Falcons threatened at 18-15.

Some good inter-passing saw the Lions battling to contain the Falcons before replacement flyhalf Len Olivier deservedly made it 18-all after 57 minutes.

Rose added a penalty and then scored a second try from his own kick into the box and some deft work from Heini Gordon. Good support from the Falcons brought Emile Verster a try (28-23) 11 minutes from time before Rose's hat-trick try finished off a satisfactory night's work for the Lions.

Lions: Tries: Franco van der Merwe, Earl Rose (3). Conversions: Rose (3) Penalties: Rose (3)

Falcons: Tries: Dewald Pretorius, Rouhan Cloete, Emile Verster.

Conversions: Jacques Scutte Penalty: Scutte, Len Olivier.

- SAPA