Classic Springboks 31 Classic Lions 14

Champions South Africa fought from a try down to overcome the Classic Lions and rack up their second bonus-point victory at the World Rugby Classic.

Five tries and three conversions gave the South Africans full points from the match and moved them to the top of the standings with ten points. The Lions, who suffered a second loss of the tournament, crossed the tryline twice.

Dick Muir, the South African coach, was delighted by the fight shown by his players.

“The guys are getting better,” Muir told The Royal Gazette.

“The first game was a tough one in wet conditions. In tonight’s game, we didn’t play nearly as well as we hoped we’d play.

“But I’m pleased that we got through it and now it’s down to the final game, where we hope we’ve got enough men standing. If we play the way we want to play, we should be successful.

“When we conceded first, we spoke about getting back to playing the way we want to play. We got drawn into the Lions style of rugby rather than the way we wanted to play.”

Lions captain Dave Attwood was glad that they managed to push their opponents in the opening half.

“We played really well in the first half,” the former England lock said.

“We managed to get a little bit of line speed and some pressure on them and get in their faces. They’ve got some good ball carriers and obviously we unsettled them to start with.

“We got into the game, but unfortunately we just didn’t have the numbers to compete. We carried a few injuries from our opening match against Canada and we were very much walking wounded at one point.

“They pulled away in the second half, so it’s sad, but very proud of the lads. It was a good game of rugby and we might have scored the try of the tournament, so we can’t grumble too much.

“I think we could have done with a bit more than 17 hours’ prep once we’d landed but that’s what you've got to get on with and we made a good game of it.

“Tonight was much more organised. We were much, much happier with how the game ran out, certainly the first half.”

Fly half Luke Price gave the Lions the lead four minutes into the encounter when he charged the ball down to score a try, which was converted by Sam Hidalgo-Clyne.

Japie Nel brought the Springboks back into the game by forcing his way over the line. Andries Coetzee booted in the conversion from a tight angle to make it 7-7, which was the score going into half-time.

Five minutes into the second half, Charles Mayeza was at the end of a brilliant move to score under the poles for the Boks to take the lead for the first time in the match.

On the other wing, JJ Engelbrecht was allowed a lot of space to bring up South Africa’s third set of five points, as Zane Kirchner added the extras with a successful conversion.

A moment of brilliance led to the second Lions try. Hidalgo-Clyne showed some lovely hands to offload the ball to Matt Scott, to cut the deficit to five points, but South Africa put the game to bed with three minutes left when Mayeza powered his way over to take his tournament tally to five tries.

There was still time for Belgium Tuatagaloa to get on the score sheet, with Coetzee adding to the Springboks tally.

Earlier in the night, the United States defeated Canada 26-12 to become the inaugural World Rugby Classic sevens champions.

Captain Nicklas Boyer scored two tries, with the other five-pointers coming from Cody Melphy and Maikeli Naromaitoga. Melphy, a former US sevens player, also kicked three conversions.

Aaron McLelland notched up all Canada’s points in the second half, with two tries and a conversion.

Boyer was delighted for his team to become the maiden winners of the competition, which was introduced this year as a result of the teams being reduced from eight to six.

“It’s massive for us because we come here every year and it's always a bit of a struggle,” Boyer said.

“Rugby’s not our primary sport in America. We don’t have the funding and the organisation that a lot of teams do, so we’re fighting uphill and for us to get some silverware, it’s just massive for our belief.

“It’s been tough for us because everyone here is over the age of 30. It’s not easy to recover as we’re already playing three 15s games in a week, which is insane.

“Then we had two more sevens games on top of it and it’s very hard on the body, but I’m really proud of the way the boys rose to the challenge today and played to win.

“I think a big part of it was belief and buy-in from the squad. Our biggest weapon was Cody Melphy, an Olympian with the US sevens team. His kick-offs and his game control, they put us in the right areas of the field, gave us the ball and in sevens that’s everything.”