British and Irish Lions ease past Sharks with 54-7 win amid Covid uncertainty

Cell C Sharks 7-54 British and Irish Lions, Ellis Park

Duhan van der Merwe and Josh Adams scored hat-tricks as British and Irish Lions maintained their winning streak in the ongoing tour of South Africa with a 54-7 win at Ellis Park.

The game was under doubt after a Covid outbreak hit the Lions camp with 12 members placed under isolation after two positive cases. Nevertheless, the game still went ahead with head coach Warren Gatland forced to do eight late changes.

Liam Williams, Anthony Watson, Dan Biggar, Gareth Davies, Tadhg Beirne, Conor Murray, Stuart Hogg and Chris Harris were withdrawn from the matchday squad with the bench containing seven forwards and a back in Finn Russell.

The chaos meant Owen Farrell played with no number on his shirt while Louis Rees-Zammit wore the number 10 jersey that should have belonged to the England skipper.

It took the Lions just three minutes to score the opening try with Adams crossing over in the third minute and three minutes later a clever pass from Sam Simmonds allowed Van Der Merwe to touchdown. Farrell kicked both the conversions as the visitors raced to a 0-14 lead.

The Lions pressed forward with Elliot Daly providing the break but Luke Cowan-Dickie failed to ground the ball but the third try came in the 25th minute when Farrell's kick was grabbed by Van der Merwe to complete his second but the conversion went wide.

Just as the break was approaching, Bundee Aki dived from a close range following a line out and with Farrell kicking the conversion the teams ended the opening half with a 0-26 for the Lions.

Sharks, who were without nine players as they were involved with South Africa's Test series against Georgia and eventually got their first points in the 50th minute when James Venter touched down in the 50th minute following a slick offloading and Bosch converted making it 7-26 before Adams' second try came in the 56th minute.

Gatland also had a couple of injury concerns with Farrell leaving the field with a possible shoulder injury but Rees-Zammit with the support of Adams went on to score his first try in the game in the 61st minute. However, he had to leave the field with a hamstring injury just before the closing time.

With Adams and Van Der Merwe completing their respective hat-tricks in the final seven minutes and Russell managed to improve all the four tries after Farrell's departure with Lions completing a convincing win amid the difficult situation created due to Covid outbreak.

Team line up:

Cell C Sharks: Libbok; Kok, Ward, Louw, Abrahams; Bosch, Hendrikse; Mona, Mbatha, Mchunu, Van Heerden, Andrews, Venter, Bholi, Buthelezi (capt).

Reserves: Van Vuuren, Mchunu, Herbst, Van der Mescht, Hugo, Richardson, Williams,Volmink.

British and Irish Lions: Adams, Rees-Zammit, Daly, Aki, Van der Merwe; Farrell, Price; Vunipola, Cowan-Dickie, Fagerson, Henderson (capt), Beard, Navidi, Curry, Simmonds.

Reserves: Owens, Sutherland, Furlong, Itoje, Conan, H Watson, Russell, Faletau