A record crowd turned up at Optus Stadium in Perth to watch the Lions open their Australian tour. Photo: supplied
A historic 46,656 crowd for the Western Force witnessed the British and Irish Lions open their Australian rugby tour with victory in Perth on Saturday.
The visitors won 54-7, eight tries to one, as they backed up from their loss to Argentina in Dublin the weekend before.
The crowd was the biggest ever for a Force game which was held at Optus Stadium.
The Lions were in control of the game, scoring a converted try (7-0) to skipper Dan Sheehan in the opening 90 seconds before the Force regathered the ball off the restart and ended up scoring a converted try (7-7) to skipper Nic White.
The Lions led 21-7 at the halftime but as team cohesion built in the composite side, the Force began to leak more points.
Match statistics for the game reveal the Force ran more with the ball (154 carries to the Lions’ 136) but failed to make more metres (433m to 725m) despite beating more defences (29 to 24) and passing more (193-167).
The Lions tackled more (168 tackles to 137) and offloaded far more (23-10) which allowed them to make more clean breaks (22-11).
Penalties went 9-7 to the Lions but the Force turned down four consecutive penalty goal attempts in a bid to score another try but were repulsed.
The game was tinged with slight controversy over the ground announcer’s attempts to highlight the Southern Hemisphere origins of players Mack Hansen (Australia) James Lowe (New Zealand) and Sione Tuipolutu (Tonga-Australia).
Force coach Simon Cron was left to rue his team’s lapses in concentration: the Lions third try came when playmaker Finn Russell opted to run a penalty and caught the Force out to set up Elliot Day for his try.
“I thought the first half was really good. A few things we had planned worked pretty well,” he told rugby.com.au.
“Disappointed we didn’t stay on in that penalty where they tapped and scored that try; that was an easy seven points and that’s a big learning for our guys, constantly staying on.”
The Lions head to Brisbane to play Queensland at Suncorp Stadium this Wednesday in the first of the visitors’ three mid-week fixtures.
