Lions roll-over the Rebels

The British and Irish Lions made sure that they did not underestimate the Rebels to avoid a repeat of their shock loss against the Brumbies a week ago. They are now approaching the second test against Australia full of confidence after subjecting the Melbourne Rebels to a 35-0 routing in their tour match on Tuesday.

The midweek Lions were eager to impress Coach Warren Gatland in their last non-test tour match as they completely outclassed the Super Rugby Franchise at the Melbourne Rectangular Stadium. In the process they scored five tries to nil, none of which were penalty tries.

Following their unexpected defeat last week against a well-drilled ACT Brumbies, where their set pieces was a mess and they were outclassed at the breakdown, their forwards made amends against the Rebels, setting up scoring chances with sharp work at the line-outs.

The Rebels, captained by former Wales back-rower Gareth Delve and marshaled by former Wallaby scrumhalf Luke Burgess, pressed hard but were let down by poor finishing.  Rebel’s fullback, Jason Woodward missed a penalty kick from straight in front, and the Rebels waved away another three points by kicking for the corner only to botch the line-out a minute before the break.

“Disappointing,” said Delve. “We wanted to try a few things but we never really got the stability at the set piece that we wanted. And a quality team like that, they ran a few points up on us.”

The 2013 British and Irish Lions are now all set for the second test against a desperate Wallaby side this coming Saturday.

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