Lions withstand Canada fightback

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 13: Forward Kris Chesney hailed the Classic Lions’ defence after their nail-biting escape against Canada in the World Rugby Classic.

The Lions were given a major scare when Jon Graff missed a last-gasp conversion to tie the game when his kick fell short of the posts, ensuring the Lions progressed nervously to win 14-12 at the National Sports Centre in Devonshire.

The performance prompted the Lions coach Allan Martin to concede his side were “fortunate” to have reached the semi-finals, where they’ll play an impressive and slick-looking Australia side.

However, former Saracens and Toulon player Chesney preferred to focus on the positives and the fighting qualities his side displayed in a bruising encounter that got the Bermuda crowd pumped up on Monday night.

“It’s always feisty when you play Canada,” said the 6ft 6in 38-year-old. “They are always going to be a good, strong side.

“We expected a difficult game but we came through this test pretty well.

I don’t know if we were hanging on, I thought we dealt with it okay. It was good defence.

“The second half was better than the first half obviously, it’s always difficult when you put a side together like we did.

“I don’t know if we’re going to win it, we’ll just take it game by game.

“We’re going to enjoy today, check out the bumps and bruises and then go from there.”

Breakthrough

The result was tough on Canada who dominated the early stages and had opened the scoring through a Jeff Williams try in the 17th minute, converted by Joe Haley. In contrast, their opponents looked leaden-footed with ball in hand and were struggling to find any tempo.

Going behind sparked the Lions into life but it wasn’t until just after the break that they made the breakthrough, Andrew Howell touching down before Ben Breeze converted to tie the game up at seven-all.

Almost immediately the Lions had the lead as former Wales and British Lions international Dafydd James went over, allowing Breeze to once again kick the extra points.

The game was far from over, though, as Canada hurled their bodies forward in an attempt to salvage something from the game. With regular time over, the Lions were penned back on the try line as they desperately tried to steal possession to get the ball out of play.

But the Canadians weren’t done and eventually they worked the ball out to the right wing where, taking advantage of the overlap, Dan Harlow crashed over to spark celebrations on the team’s bench.

It just left Graff with the chance to level the match with a tricky kick metres in from the right touchline – but it wasn’t to be and the relieved Lions advanced into the last four.