I thought we'd nick it, admits McGeechan
Ian McGeechan proud of his players
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Saturday, 20, Jun 2009 11:17
British and Irish Lions coach Ian McGeechan admitted that he thought his side were on the verge of claiming an astonishing win over South Africa.
The Lions looked to be dead and buried as they fell to a 26-7 deficit in the second-half, but they showed tremendous courage to claw their way back to 26-21 with late tries from Tom Croft and Mike Phillips.
In the end it was the Lions' indiscipline which cost them dear as they kept giving away penalties, which contributed to 12 of the 26 points that South Africa scored.
"I thought in the last eight minutes we'd have another crack and nick it in the end. We had them on the back foot," said McGeechan.
"We broke [throuh] them consistently in the first half but unfortunately the penalties killed us. It was a long way to come back but I thought we'd get one more opportunity, and they did as well."
There were plenty of positives to come out of the game despite the defeat. Not only did the Lions score more tries then South Africa, they also came agonisingly close to scoring three further tries with both Ugo Monye and Phillips failing to ground the ball on the try-line.
The performances of Brian O'Driscoll, Phillips and in particular Wales centre Jamie Roberts, who was absolutely brilliant, will give McGeechan hope his side can still win the three match series.
McGeechan added: "I'm hugely proud of the rugby. That was high quality rugby. The players have done us proud in that respect but we're just hugely disappointed because we just feel there are so many points on the board for us today that we should have been comfortably away from them."