Super Cup Final
Lusitanos narrowly lose the final against the Black Lion in the first edition of the Rugby Europe Super Cup.
Written by: Nuno Madeira do O
The best part: a very tight match, with a lot of changes on the scoreboard. Entertaining match for everyone that was lucky to watch it.
The not-so-good part: the Lusitanos’ scrum. If the lesson of how to stop the Black Lion maul was well studied, the same didn’t happen regarding their scrum. Seven penalties that resulted in a yellow card and several dangerous opportunities for the visitors and that, ultimately, cost the match.
Player of the match: in the Portuguese side, Rafael Simões was the main highlight (especially during the first half), with a lot of very important carries that opened up the Georgian defence. Nuno Sousa Guedes was also very dangerous, and the captain Tomas Appleton played at a good level, both attacking and defending. However, the player of the match was Tengiz Peranidze. The Georgian scrum-half commanded the scrum exceptionally well and scored the second try of his team that gave them the lead.
In rugby it’s usual to say that the forwards win the match and the backs decide by how much. It was exactly that that happened today in Jamor (Lisbon), in the final of the first edition of the Rugby Europe Super Cup, where the Lusitanos lost against he Georgian Black Lion (14-17).
Besides being a final, this match reminisced of the Georgia v Portugal (first round of the Rugby Europe Championship 2022) that ended with a draw at 25. In this case, only local players could b called but about two thirds of each team had been present in Tblisi, earlier in the year.
The beginning of the match was very tight, with both teams kicking a lot, in an attempt to force a mistake from the opposite side. Lusitanos had more ball but the Black Lion’s defence was always very tight and didn’t open any spaces for the Portuguese offence.
At the 10th minute, the visitors won a line out and tried their famous rolling mauls. However, the Lusitanos managed to stop it but the Black Lion, through a few “pick and go” plays managed to cross the try line through number eight Luka Ivanishvili. Try converted and the scoreboard showed 0-7 for the away team.
The Lusitanos reacted immediately and at the 14th minute and almost scored following a good line break from Rafael Simões. Three minutes later, the same player managed to hold onto the ball with three Georgians around him and made important yards. With a sequence of very fast balls off the ruck, the Lusitanos opened up the Black Lion defence and Manuel Cardoso Pinto scored on the left wing. Jerónimo Portela missed the conversion and the scoreboard stayed at 5-7.
The away team wasn’t affected by the try and maintained their defensive composure. Their tactic was simple: conquer penalties at the scrum, kick to the corner, win the line-out and score through mauls. However, the Portuguese team was being very effective in stopping the last part of this process which hindered the Black Lion’s alternatives.
Ironically, it was through a maul that the Lusitanos caused danger to the Georgian defence and managed to win a penalty. Sousa Guedes scored and put the Lusitanos ahead: 8-7 with 25 minutes played.
However, the scrums continued to be problematic for the Lusitanos that had committed four penalties with only 33 minutes played. The referee warned them that the yellow card wasn’t far behind. Under intense heat (27C in Lisbon), half-time came with the home team leading by 1 point.
The second half started the same way the first one had, with a lot of kicking. The Black Lion had more ball but the Lusitanos didn’t let them progress on the pitch. At the 43rd minute, following a penalty, Nuno Sousa Guedes increased the home team’s advantage to 11-7.
The advantage could have been even bigger when the Lusitanos almost scored another try, following a good combination between Rodrigo Marta and Manuel Cardoso Pinto. However, a knock-on was turned into another scrum and with it, the first scrum penalty and the expected yellow card. The victim was tighthead prop Antonio Prim and the Lusitanos were down to 14 players for ten minutes.
With an extra player on the pitch, the Georgian side won yet another scrum and with a very quick a cunning break scored their second try through Peranidze. Try converted and the scoreboard moved to 11-14 at the 52nd minute.
With 60 minutes played, following a penalty, Babunashvili added three points to the visitors with Nuno Sousa Guedes paying back in kind six minutes later (14-17). With two minutes to go, Rodrigo Marta had a very good line break but the offensive play ends with a knock-on, confirming that the Black Lion were the winners of the Rugby Europe Super Cup.
Linha de Ensaio has written a few times about the importance of this competition for the development of Portuguese players. Today’s first row had players with the following ages: 19 years old, 22 years old and 23 years old. They battled ferociously against an opposite front row made of three Georgian international players with dozens of caps between them and ages of 31, 26, and 31 years old. We are sure that the lessons learned today will be very useful for the matches to come in what will be their natural progression to the Lobos team.
We would like to congratulate all the players involved in this year’s Rugby Europe Super Cup. We will be back next season to carry on watching the Lusitanos marvelling fans all over Europe.
