(Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)
The dead rubber at Ellis park was all about pride for the Lions, and a chance for many Boks to earn a place in the "first" team. The Lions were magnificent, and once again employed the same strategy as they employed all tour, despite having massive personnel changes.
I liked the way they moved the ball, ran straight and hard, and took the ball through phases. Many in the Southern hempishere criticize players like Stephen Jones as one-dimensional, but he was instrumental in dictating the way the Lions played, and was prominent looping around the outside backs to create the extra man.
Meanwhile, the Boks looked devoid of any sense of a game plan other than to play error-free rugby in the opposition half, and feed off the Lions mistakes.
Their runners were unable to break the advantage line, meaning we often resorted to kicking, which was aimless from the back. The Lions returned the ball with interest from Rob Kearney and Jones.
Whilst I thought the Lions got away with a lot of negative play at the breakdown, especially in the third test, they played to the referee and got away with it.
The fact they transgressed the offside line stopped the Boks from getting over the advantage line. As a result the Boks were either too shallow turning the ball over, or too deep and nailed behind the advantage line.
No one in the Springbok side was able to produce any tactic to overcome the opposition moves. It may be why the Boks had greater success from set pieces in scoring tries.
However, it was interesting to how the Bulls players, many with world-class talent, played so well a month or so ago, and a now look very average. I think much blame has to go to the coaching staff, especially mad-mad Peter de Villers.
He has not produced anything constructive from the Boks; we were outscored in the series 74-63, but more importantly the Lions scored seven tries to our five.
Whilst we may have won the series 2-1, the Lions can claim the moral victory as we did in 1997. Whilst we have 12 years to claim the result, we have 12 more years of waiting to stamp our dominance over the Lions...
Check out my Springbok player ratings for the British and Irish Lions series
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