Winless Lions 'growing'
Lions captain Warren Whiteley did well to contain himself in the wake of yet another shameful TMO clanger.
In fact Whiteley opted to focus on the "small things" that has left his team winless after a taxing month-long Australasian tour.
The Western Force stayed on track for their maiden appearance in Super Rugby play-offs with a 29-19 win over the Lions in Perth on Saturday.
The four-try bonus-point saw the Force move up to fourth in the global standings and overtake the Brumbies in second place in the Australian conference.
The turning point in the match was when Australian TMO Peter Marshall, in the 35th minute, decided to inject himself into the game and issued a yellow card against Lions prop Corne Fourie.
It may not have influenced the outcome, but it certainly influenced the game in a very negative way
However, the inaccurate ruling of Marshall would have rankled the Lions – coming in the wake of an equally disgraceful blunder by another Aussie official, Angus Gardner, who failed to allow a retake of a last-minute penalty by Elton Jantjies – which could have resulted in their first win on the road, but instead became a 22-23 loss to the Highlanders.
Whiteley tactfully sidestepped the match officials' poor performances and insisted it was "small errors" that hurt his side.
The Lions skipper said that his team was on the right track despite another loss.
"I am proud of the boys," Whiteley he said.
"We grew a lot on this tour, even though we couldn't get a result."
Force captain Matt Hodgson said they were not thinking play-offs yet.
"We are just taking each week as it comes," he said.
"It is a tight competition and we need to keep plugging way with the wins, but it was good to get a bonus point."
Force coach Michael Foley said registering the record eighth win satisfied one of the team's goals for the season with the focus now on further exceeding that mark.
"I'm very, very proud," he said.
"I thought the guys were very good. Some of the rugby we played was some of the best we've played in the last couple of weeks.
"Responding to last week [an 8-24 loss to the Stormers in Cape Town] was important.
"It's always a challenge coming home from South Africa, and I thought we played some pretty good rugby; we didn't always finish it off but we stuck at it and to get the bonus point at the end was great.
"The guys stuck at their work well.
"The Lions kept coming and they defended well.
"We've been in that position ourselves and having a side defend like that against us was credit to them."
The result sealed a record fifth consecutive home victory for the franchise and contributed to the eighth victory for the season – surpassing the previous franchise record of seven wins in a season registered in 2008.
