Lions 37-20 Cardiff: Slow start costs Welsh side as comeback falls short

Cardiff's wait for an away win this season continued as they fell to a frustrating defeat to the Lions in Johannesburg.

Nearly four months since the Blue and Blacks first arrived in South Africa, their first piece of on-field action in the southern hemisphere was one marred by a desperately slow start.

Just after the end of the first quarter, Cardiff trailed 24-6.

And while they did get back into the game thanks to tries from Aled Summerhill and James Botham, there'll be a sense of frustration that they couldn't complete the comeback against a Lions side that rarely threatened to land a punch beyond those early scores.

The home side took just over a minute to score. Scrum-half Morne van den Berg spotting some disorganisation around the Cardiff ruck defence to snipe over after Jordan Hendrikse's monstrous 50:22 had given them prime field position.

The two sides exchanged penalties, with two from Jarrod Evans, making his 100th appearance for the club, either side of Hendrikse's effort from the tee making it 10-6 after 12 minutes.

However from there, two quickfire tries from winger Edwill van der Merwe pushed the home side out to a comfortable lead.

His first came from patient red-zone pressure after Cardiff failed to regather a kick-off, with the winger eventually taking advantage of the space afforded to him out wide for a walkover.

His second came as the Cardiff defence was cut apart by a deft offload from flanker Vincent Tshituka, with centre Wandisile Simelane drawing the final man to put van der Merwe away.

Cardiff, to their credit, responded well as they finally snapped into gear.

Will Boyde appeared to have scored from a driving maul shortly afterwards, only for TMO Ben Whitehouse to pull it back for an