Connacht’s hopes of reaching the United Rugby Championship play-offs suffered a blow with a 26-7 defeat by the Lions in South Africa.
In contrast to Connacht’s dramatic defeat by the Stormers in their previous fixture, when there were eight first-half tries, the opening 40 minutes in Johannesburg proved to be relatively low key.
The hosts made the breakthrough in the 14th minute after slick offloading in the Connacht 22 allowed back Renzo du Plessis to crash over.
Kade Wolhuter pushed the conversion attempt wide, but the fly-half soon made a penalty count to extend the Lions’ advantage.
Wolhuter was on target again four minutes before the break as the Lions led 11-0 at half-time.
The Lions’ number 10 kicked the first score after the restart with his third penalty of the game, but the South Africans were reduced to 14 players when Du Plessis was sent to the sin-bin for a trip on Santiago Cordero.
Connacht, without a head coach after Peter Wilkins stepped down, thought they had immediately capitalised when Dylan Tierney-Martin rounded off a rolling maul by dropping over the line, but the TMO adjudged there was obstruction and the try was ruled out.
It was the Lions’ turn to have a try ruled out when Edwill van der Merwe looked to have scored a sensational solo effort. Play was brought back for a high tackle on centre David Hawkshaw by opposite number Heco van Wyk when Connacht had the ball earlier in the play.
However, the hosts got a deserved try with 10 minutes to play when JC Pretorius got on the end of Jarod Cairns’ offload to score.
Eoin de Buitlear responded for Connacht on his return from injury with seven minutes to play, and David Hawkshaw converted, but the Lions had the final say when Van der Merwe pounced on a loose ball to race clear and score.
The defeat is a blow to Connacht’s play-off hopes. They are 14th in the URC table and now five points off the top eight with two matches remaining, while the Lions move into 13th with the win.
Lions: Horn; Kriel; Van Wyk, Mills; Van der Merwe; Wolhuter, Van den Berg; Naude, Visagie, Ntlabakanye; R Schoeman, Delport; Pretorius, Du Plessis, Cairns.
Replacements: Botha, Kotze, RF Schoeman, Landsberg, Esterhuizen, Steyn, Dobela, Jonker.
Connacht: O’Conor; Bolton; Hawkshaw, Forde; Jennings; Carty, Devine; Dooley, Tierney-Martin, Aungier; Murphy, Joyce; Prendergast, Oliver, Jansen.
Replacements: De Buitlear, Duggan, Illo, Dowling, Boyle, Reilly, Gavin, Cordero.
