Bulls skipper says Lions used wrong ball

The Bulls seemingly had the game won when Jacques-Louis Potgieter slotted a 79th minute penalty to give his side a three-point lead.

However, the Lions rushed to restart play and caught the Bulls out with a quick kick-off. It allowed them to regain possession from which substitute hooker Akker van der Merwe scored to give the Lions a 22-18 victory.

Spies though claims the Lions used the wrong ball to take the quick restart. The rules state that if a team wants to take a quick restart, they have to use the same ball which was used to convert the previous penalty kick or conversion. 

''I don't want to make any excuses. We should have secured possession at the last restart, but the Lions used another ball which may have caused us to lose concentration,'' skipper Spies told Netwerk24.

''I didn't have time to ask the referee (Jaco van Heerden) about it,'' he said.

Spies nevertheless praised the Lions for their never-say-die attitude and called on his players to focus for the full 80 minutes.

''Despite a few decisions going against us in the last few minutes, the Lions deserve praise. They made sure they used the chance afforded to them. We played well enough to win this game,'' he added.

(File photo: Gallo Images)

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