Late Rohan show clinches it for Lions

Lions centre Rohan van Rensburg dives over for his first try against the Cheetahs. Photo: Gerhard Steenkamp, BackpagePix

Lions centre Rohan van Rensburg dives over for his first try against the Cheetahs. Photo: Gerhard Steenkamp, BackpagePix

Published Feb 25, 2017

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Centre Rohan Janse van Rensburg scored two second-half tries to help the Lions start the 2017 Super Rugby season with a hard-fought 28-25 win against the Cheetahs in Bloemfontein on Saturday.

The powerful No 12 took full advantage of some quality build-up play by his teammates to score two of the Lions’ tries, to go with a seven-point penalty try, in an encounter that will not live long in the memory.

Last year’s runners-up though are off to a winning start, but the Cheetahs will feel they could just as easily have bagged the four points. They played some decent rugby and asked plenty of the Lions defenders, but most impressive was their own improved defensive effort.

The home team’s only five-pointer came via wing Raymond Rhule, who benefited from a poor bit of execution by the visitors, but they created enough line-breaks and chances for coach Franco Smith to be optimistic about the season ahead.

It was a game though that was full of errors, plenty of penalties, a fair bit of ill-discipline and concerning injuries to several players, among them opposing centres Howard Mnisi and Nico Lee.

The home team were full of running early on, but it was the visitors who struck first, Elton Jantjies landing a penalty in the 14th minute.

Not long after that it was the turn of Fred Zeilinga to send the ball through the uprights, but Jantjies again edged his team ahead with a penalty in the 24th minute.

There were few try-scoring chances in the early exchanges and the Lions were forced to make a change as early as the 13th minute when centre Mnisi left the field with what looked like a serious knee injury.

The Lions then also had to soldier on without Faf de Klerk for 10 minutes following his sin-binning in the 34th minute for a cynical infringement, when he dived all over a ball with the Cheetahs on the attack.

Zeilinga made it 6-6 on the stroke of halftime, but the Cheetahs could well have been ahead had the No 10 not missed two shots at goal and had the home team finished off some of the line-breaks made by Clayton Blommetjies, Clinton Swart and Lee.

Cheetahs flyhalf Fred Zeilinga (with ball) kicked six penalties and a conversion, which won him the Man-of-the-Match award. Photo: Gerhard Steenkamp, BackpagePix

But the Cheetahs would open up a big lead straight from the restart after a poor Jaco Kriel pass was picked up by Rhule, who ran all of 40 metres to score the game’s opening try.

Zeilinga’s conversion and a further penalty by the Cheetahs flyhalf minutes later saw the home team lead 16-6, and at that stage they seemed to be well on their way to starting with a win.

The Lions though got a try back through Janse van Rensburg when he finished off a counter-attack in which Lionel Mapoe got lucky with a grubber kick that bounced up perfectly for him to advance the move forward, and where Andries Coetzee off-loaded perfectly to the charging centre.

Jantjies’ conversion closed the gap to three points.

The two No 10s then traded penalties before Zeilinga put his team six points clear with a fifth penalty with 15 minutes remaining.

The Lions though, with an accurate throw-in at a lineout by Malcolm Marx, saw the players maul the ball towards the line, only for it to be brought down illegally and referee Quinton Immelman awarding a seven-point penalty try.

Zeilinga soon restored his team’s advantage with a further penalty and just when it looked like the Cheetahs were going to start the competition with a win, up pops Janse van Rensburg on the blindside, his excellent catch from a Ross Cronjé dart and pass, giving him a run-in to the line and sealing the win for the 2016 finalists.

@jacq_west

Points-Scorers

Cheetahs

– Try: Raymond Rhule. Conversion: Fred Zeilinga (1). Penalties: Zeilinga (6).

Lions

– Tries: Rohan Janse van Rensburg (2), Penalty Try. Conversion: Elton Jantjies (1). Penalties: Jantjies (3).

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