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Jantjies stars as Lions advance along Easy Street
By Tom Webber
Elton Jantjies played a starring role as Lions extended their Super Rugby winning streak to nine matches with a 51-14 mauling of Bulls.
Springbok fly-half Jantjies provided 16 points and was at the heart of Lions' play as they ran in seven tries for a bonus-point victory.
Ruan Combrinck opened the scoring in the second minute and doubled his tally at the end of the first half, adding to efforts from Kwagga Smith, Ruan Dreyer and captain Warren Whiteley.
Jan Serfontein and Jesse Kriel got on the board for Bulls, but Franco Mostert's try three minutes after the restart scuppered their hopes of a comeback.
Lions controlled the rest of the match, but did not add to their score until Lionel Mapoe touched down and Jantjies had the final say, adding the extras with the last kick of the game.
Southern Kings fell to a first defeat in four as Brumbies rallied to a 19-10 victory with two unanswered second-half tries.
Josh Mann-Rea responded to an early penalty try awarded to the Kings, but a missed conversion and a Lionel Cronje penalty gave the South Africa franchise a five-point lead at the break.
But Aidan Toua and Tom Banks ran in scores within seven minutes of one another and Wharenui Hawera converted both as Brumbies ended a run of four straight losses.
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Latest Comments
GB is England, Scotland, Wales. They are the 3 constituent countries in Great Britain. Ergo playing only those three countries is a tour of GB. The difference between GB and the UK is Northern Ireland. It's not a huge deal to be accurate and call places by their correct name. But please refrain from your idiotic attempts to BS that GB=UK. It doesn't.
Go to commentsThe 2023 draw was only criticized when it became apparent that the top 5 sides in the world were on the same side of the draw. Nowhere did they discuss the decision to backtrack to 2019 rankings which ensured that England and Wales (ranked #12 in 2023) were ranked top4.
The parties who trashed out the schedule were England Rugby, NZ Rugby and ITV. It is bordering on corrupt that a Rugby nation has the power to schedule its opponents to play a major match the week before facing them in a QF.
You won't find commentary by members of the relevant committees because a committee did not make the scheduling decision. I have never heard members of World Rugby speak out on the draw or scheduling issues.
For example in 2015 Japan were hammered by Scotland 4 days after beating SA. The criticism only happens after a cock up.
A fair pool schedule is pretty straightforward: The lowest two tanked teams must play on last pool day but not against each other. That means that TV can focus on promoting big matches with a Tier2 involved for that Friday.
Why does NZ Always get its preferred slot playing the hardest pool match on day 1?
Why do other teams eg France, Ireland, Scotland get so often scheduled to play a hard match the week before the QFs?
If you believe the rules around scheduling are transparent then please point me in the right direction?
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