A JOB only half done can easily be undone, Maro Itoje has warned his British & Irish Lions team-mates.
The lock forward was outstanding in his team’s 22-17 victory over South Africa in Saturday’s first Test, but he is all too aware that the Springboks are likely to be even tougher opponents when the teams meet in Cape Town again in five days’ time. And, having studied the history of the Lions, he has the evidence at his fingertips to show that a win in the first instalment of a three-match series is no guarantee of an overall triumph.
“Saturday was a great win, but we need to do a job next week for this win to really count,” English second-row Itoje said after picking up his man-of-the-match award. “I’m a man who likes to look at history to see how other tours have unfolded. Looking at the 2001 series in Australia, the Lions won the first Test quite convincingly then went on to lose the next two.
“So we’re happy with the win, but we know we need to do more. Game on game, we’re getting better, we’re learning lessons, so I think there is more to come from us. I think there is so much more in this team.
“South Africa are a very proud rugby nation. I think they’re going to analyse that game a lot and they are going to pick out ways in which they can improve.
“I think they’re going to come with a higher intensity. They’re going to come harder at the scrum, they’re going to come harder at the lineout, they’re going to come harder with their kicking game - that’s probably where they got the most change out of us on Saturday, so they’ll probably look to attack that.
“We need to be better in all three of those areas. We need to be cleaner, we need to be more efficient, especially with our kicking game and in our breakdown, where we need to be a lot better. We need to be better, we need to be stronger, and hopefully get the result we need next week.”
Perhaps the most encouraging aspect for the Lions in their win two days ago was the fact that after a poor first half they were both better and stronger - mentally and physically - than their opponents. “The first half we came out with a decent intensity but probably not the intensity we needed,” was Itoje’s reading of the situation. “But most importantly, and to our detriment, we were giving away a lot of silly penalties. We weren’t being as disciplined as we needed to be.
“In the second half we flipped it on its head. We came out with a higher intensity and we kept our discipline a lot more and as a result we were able to put a little bit more pressure on them.
“We just had to trust ourselves a bit more. Trust ourselves, trust our systems and increase the intensity. At half-time we were obviously 12-3 down and often when you are in that kind of situation you have two choices: either you continue doing what you’re doing and watch the scoreboard get away from you, or you roll up your sleeves and try to turn it around. We tried to do the latter, and fortunately for us it was successful.”
After the break the Springboks could only add a Faf de Klerk try to Handre Pollard’s four first-half penalties. The Lions, for whom Dan Biggar had scored in the first half, added a Luke Cowan-Dickie try and 14 more points with the boot - 11 by Biggar then a late penalty from substitute Owen Farrell.
For all that the final margin was narrow, the visitors clearly had greater stamina - a remarkable fact in the case of their captain, Alun Wyn Jones, who played the full match just four weeks after dislocating a shoulder. The Welshman, who was playing in his 10th consecutive Lions Test, will turn 36 in September.
“Alun Wyn is a high-energy senior citizen,” Itoje added when asked to sum up the contribution of the skipper both on the field and in the dressing room at half-time. “He’s a high-energy man. So he was very vocal.
“But for occasions like this you don’t really need to talk too much: I think he read the room, read the environment, and said the appropriate things at the appropriate times.”
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