Saturday was a day of astonishing sporting comebacks.
The Lions found themselves 5-33 down against the Rebels, before a stellar second-half saw them win 36-33 via a last-gasp penalty.
In the English Premier League, West Ham came from 1-3 down to win 4-3 against Huddersfield, and a last-gasp Matt Ritchie screamer secured a point for Newcastle against Bournemouth.
The FA Cup also served up some drama, with Manchester City turning around a 0-2 deficit to win 3-2 against Swansea, albeit with the help of a dodgy offside goal to clinch it.
As for the Proteas – well, there was no comeback onto the field after a floodlight failure (not related to load shedding) saw the match end in farcical circumstances, securing a 5-0 series win.
The most drama of all, though, was reserved for the Six Nations clash between England and Scotland at Twickenham, where the Poms surged to a 31-0 lead inside half an hour.
I don’t want to spoil the ending, but it was one helluva match:
Gutted that the Scots couldn’t secure their first win at Twickenham in 36 years, but still an all-time classic.
Their coach, Gregor Townsend, was understandably bleak about the final twist in the tale. This from the BBC:
“You’re 31-0 down and you end up 38-31 ahead – that doesn’t tend to happen in this venue against this team…They played intelligently, they defended like lions, and they attacked really well, scored some great tries, and they’re really disappointed not to have got the win, which seems incredible after where we were.
“It felt for some of the players like the quarter-final against Australia, one of those games that went back and forth, and right at the end the team that were leading didn’t hang on.”
You may recall the great Craig Joubert debate of 2015, to which Gregor refers above.
Fair enough – I’m still hurting from Bryce Lawrence having robbed us in 2011.
By the way, if you haven’t seen the highlights of the Lions’ comeback against the Rebels, I’ll pop it below:
To finish, here’s another Messi masterclass from last night’s La Liga match between Barcelona and Real Betis.
Just the three goals for the greatest footballer the planet has ever seen:
[source:bbc]
