Limp Lions feel the Force
The out-going Drew Mitchell and Matt Giteau scored first-half tries as Western Force hammered the South African Lions 55-14 in Perth.
Last Updated: 24/04/09 2:54pm
The out-going Drew Mitchell and Matt Giteau scored first-half tries as Western Force hammered the South African Lions 55-14 in Perth.
The Australians ran-in a total of eight tries with Giteau also converting six of them, adding a penalty to take his personal tally to 20 points.
Mitchell, who earlier on Friday signed for the Waratahs, crossed in the second minute and for the Lions there was no way back as the Force drove home their advantage.
The match was over as a contest inside half an hour with the hosts already 24-0 to the good, the Perth-based side going on to post their highest winning margin since their inception four years ago and keeping their semi-final hopes alive in the process.
Strolled through
The Force got the perfect start in the opening minute when James O'Connor set up Ryan Cross for a dangerous run, and when he offloaded to Mitchell the home side was on the board.
Mitchell was again involved in the next try after his big drive took four Lions defenders down. When Giteau got the ball, he strolled right through two defenders and scored a try under the posts.
Things got worse 25 minutes in when a penalty try was awarded to the Force when Ernst Joubert took out Scott Staniforth as he was running onto a kick. The try was awarded but even if it wasn't Ben Castle grounded it. Giteau converted and the Force was up 21-0.
The Lions finally hit the scoreboard five minutes from half time when the Force defence went to sleep. Full-back Earl Rose cruised through several defenders, offloaded to Jannie Boshoff and he crossed comfortably.
A minute from the break Giteau and Sam Wykes went on terrific runs and made good offloads to see the ball end up in Cameron Shepherd's hands and he made it to the try line. Giteau missed the conversion but the Force led 29-7 at the break.
Things got even worse for the Lions six minutes into the second half when replacement winger Shandre Frolick was yellow carded for deliberately stopping the Force ball.
Shepherd denied hat-trick
The Force capitalised minutes later when O'Connor once again was in the middle of the action to get the ball to Tamaiti Horua, who made a good run before passing to Shepherd who scored his sixth try of the season.
Shepherd wasn't done, though, and appeared to score his seventh of the season and third of the match, but television match official George Ayoub harshly ruled he stepped into touch.
It didn't dampen their domination, however, as O'Connor, Mitchell and Shepherd combined for the Force's fifth try. It ended with O'Connor crossing, Giteau converted and the home side was up 41-7.
TMO Ayoub then squared up to award replacement Force prop AJ Whalley his third career try. Giteau converted to make it 48-7.
The Lions scored a consolation try through Rose with 12 minutes to go but the Force was soon awarded a second penalty try soon after.
Giteau smothered a kick from Rose inside the try area and O'Connor would have run onto it to score if not for the foul play defence from Todd Clever. The try was awarded and when Giteau converted the Force led 55-14.
The Force now head to South Africa to play the Bulls and Stormers before finishing the season at home to the Highlanders, while the Lions return to Johannesburg to play the Crusaders, Highlanders and Waratahs.
