Lions win third game on Australasian road trip

27 March 2015 11:46

Quade Cooper had a drop goal attempt charged down as South Africa's Golden Lions clung on for their third win in Brisbane on Friday, on their Australasian Super Rugby road trip.

Former Wallaby fly-half Cooper, returning from a broken collarbone injury in his first game for the Reds this season, was positioned for a shot at drop goal after the fulltime siren but the desperate Lions defence charged down the kick to preserve a 18-17 win.

It was the first time the Johannesburg-based Lions had won three games on their away trip to New Zealand and Australia, while the Reds slumped to second-last on the overall standings.

It was a galling defeat for the beleaguered 2011 Super Rugby champions, who had Cooper and Wallaby back James O'Connor among four key players returning from injury.

Instead the Reds crashed to their fifth defeat in six matches, while the Lions climbed to 10th on the the back of their third win of the season.

The Lions led 8-3 at halftime after a 14th minute try from centre Harold Vorster.

Queensland made a mess of a lineout before impressive openside flanker Warwick Tecklenburg crashed over in the 49th minute to stretch the Lions' lead to 15-3.

But the Reds hit back with a 53rd-minute penalty try before giant centre Samu Kerevi crashed over in the 68th minute off a set piece to trail by two points.

However, Ben Tapuai was penalised for not releasing the ball in a ruck and fly-half Elton Jantjies kicked the South Africans to the front with eight minutes left.

"We probably did the hard work in the first half, we stayed composed when they put us under pressure and we scored some good tries," Lions skipper Warren Whiteley said.

"We are extremely happy with three out of four wins and we're still a bit off our best, we can improve in our set piece."

Reds counterpart James Slipper said his team paid for poor execution.

"Essentially with all the blokes coming back into the side we had a few changes and it's hard to build consistency with that sort of player movement," he said.

"I thought the effort was there, I just think our execution let us down."

Source: AFP