THE LIONS flew into the coastal resort of East London yesterday confident they can sustain the high pressure football that earned them a satisfying five-try victory in their opening tour match at Port Elizabeth on Saturday.
Their next opponents, Border, should allow the Lions sufficient licence on Wednesday to develop the explosive movement, ball in hand, that ultimately buried a battling Eastern Province side.
When the Lions were good, they were very good indeed, as they demonstrated with a destructive fusillade of four tries in the last 18 minutes. When they were mediocre - for example in the quarter hour after the break when Deon Keyser scored the hosts' only try - the tourists indulged in some of their enduring bad habits, going to ground with negative intent and often kicking aimlessly.
No doubt the Lions coaches, Ian McGeechan and Jim Telfer, will dissect the shortcomings of this highly committed performance with the aim of achieving the 80-minute continuity that will he required to survive against tougher opposition. Still, they had reason to be pleased with the collective passion of an untested side for which Jeremy Guseott scored two masterly tries while the number eight Scott Quinnell dominated in the loose.
Other individuals also suggested they have put a hard domestic season behind them and quickly forged the fresh mental steel needed for the 13-match tour. Doddie Weir, the Scotland lock was a revelation, pressuring the South Africans with remarkable gusto; the flankers Richard Hill and Lawrence Dallaglio looked like Test incumbents in the making; and among the backs Will Greenwood and the 66th minute substitute Tony Underwood were sharp and full of creative running.
On the debit side, there were ominous signs that Neil Jenkins and Gregor Townsend may have problems settling down at full-back and out-half respectively. The Welsh man, understandably after a three-month break with a fractured arm, looked unfocused in his general play and lacked precision in his line kicking. Townsend clearly needs time to get back his timing as an instinctive decision-maker, though, to be fair, a consistent flow of possession was not on offer.
"We took a while to gain control hut when we did it looked good, said Fian Cotton the Lions manager. "Eastern Province were a pretty useful outfit with a couple of Antipodean forwards to back up Kobus Wiese and they always played as though they wanted to win. This is only the start of Tour, but already the Lions have shown they are determined to meet the demands of South African rugby."
Unsurprisingly, the Eastern Province coach Johan Kluyts was less optimistic about the Lions, criticising them for trailing 11-10 after an hour's play and forecasting that the forwards will struggle in the Test series against the Springboks. While there is some truth in Kluyts' claim that the Lions pack looked vulnerable and disorganised when going backwards," their defence was generally solid close to the try line where it really mattered.
In any case, adverse comment by South Africans must be taken with a healthy pinch of salt in view of the propaganda element.
It is worth pointing out that on a hot afternoon the Lions developed a rapid tempo from the outset and, but for a stray pass here and there, they might well have scored an extra 10 to 15 points. In fact it was the Lions' temporary inability to convert pressure into points and possibly kill off Eastern Province by half-time that motivated the host side to such a degree that they grabbed the lead with an exciting 49th minute try.
When the Springbok Le Roux, who had switched from the centre to out-half, unloaded the ball to Keyser in midfield, both Jenkins and Beal appeared to have the threat well covered, but the wing suddenly adjusted his line of attack, drifting to the right in imperious style to score close to the posts.
Earlier, after a brief exchange of penalty goals between Jenkins and Theo van Rensburg. the Lions seemed in the mood to open the floodgates when Townsend sent the alert Guseott racing through a midfield gap to score at the posts.
Yet a full half hour went by without further points on the board and, when they did materialise, van Rensburg was the beneficiary, reducing the deficit to 10-6 with a 30-metre penalty just before the break.
Eastern Province toyed with the heady prospect of victory for a tantalising 14 minutes in the second half but when the dam finally burst, the home side were comprehensively blown away. Quinnell set up the Lions' second try, driving off the base of the scrum before transferring to Weir who promptly fell over the line.
Two minutes after Underwood replaced Evans, the wing weaved through the defence for a brilliant solo try; then Greenwood and Townsend combined sweetly to send Guscott arrowing to the posts.
