Lions loss: Don't pin it on just one guy

Springbok Marnitz Boshoff may have missed that crucial final kick and had a nightmare with the boot, but he is not the reason the Golden Lions lost in the Currie Cup Final to Western Province.

Neither was the erratic form of error-prone scrumhalf Ross Cronje to blame for the visitors' failure to make the most of their chances in an absorbing encounter.

While WP flyhalf Demetri Catrakilis produced a flawless, 100 percent performance off the tee (four from four penalties and a conversion), the Lions' goal-kickers were struggling with the blustering Cape Town wind – Boshoff kicking just two from six penalty shots at goal, while he was also off target with two drop-goal attempts. Wing Ruan Combrinck, who took the long-range efforts, kicked just one of his two penalty attempts.

Lions coach Johan Ackermann and captain Warren Whiteley both stood firmly behind their halfback combination, accepting the blame as a "team".

Both opted to praise Province for their outstanding display at Newlands at the weekend and said the home team was deserved winners.

"We had more than enough chances to win," Ackermann told the post-match media briefing, adding: "My heart bleeds for the players, but we also learnt some valuable lessons.

"It is an experience they can take with them into the future."

Both coach and captain said you have to loo beyond the last kick, and angled penalty in a swirling wind, which would have taken the game into extra time if Boshoff had succeeded.

"It is always tough with an opportunity like that, right on the full-time hooter," Ackermann said.

"You can never just pin it on one player.

"While everybody will look at that last kick, there were plenty of other opportunities where we should not have conceded any points, or made better decisions.

"It is easy in hindsight to suggest we should have done this or that,  but we must give credit to Western Province.

"As I have already said, there are some valuable lessons we will take forward from this game."

The coach said that there may have been occasions when their decision-making was not on par, but they still did enough to come back from 0-13 down at half-time and draw level.

"We can look at all the missed kicks, but the fact is, we had plenty of opportunities.

"They [WP] simply used their opportunities better and kicked all their penalties."

Whiteley said Province played outstandingly well  and put the points on the board in the first half, to race into a 13-0 lead.

"[In the second half] we upped the intensity a bit more and probably had more variation in our play," the Lions skipper said.

" Province kept us out in the first half, then we changed and tweaked a few things in our game plan that started working for us. The decision-making was also better."

However, he also refused to blame the halfbacks, who seemed to struggle with the pressure of the big occasion and the testing conditions.

"There is a lot of pressure on your No.9 and N0.10, as they control the game," Whiteley told the media scrum.

"However, there were so many opportunities, where we could have perhaps done better.

"It [the last penalty] is just one moment, that he didn't get it over. That is the sport that we play, the reality of the game.

"You can never pin that on one person.

"Bossie [Boshoff] is a fantastic player and we know what he is capable of.

"As a team we just weren't good enough on the day and province were deserved winners."

He said they will accept the blame as a collective unit.

"We're all brothers and there are comradery and brotherhood.

"You feel for a guy like that – it is definitely not all on him, it is a team effort, collectively.

"That is how we've played for the last 12  months – that is  how we take his loss, we take it as a team."

By Jan de Koning

@King365ed

@rugby365com