The Lobos of Portugal beat Morocco's Lions of the Atlas 16-15 in Lisbon to win the second leg of their World Cup qualifier and thus move a step closer to winning the final spot in France.
What a match! Morocco arrived in Lisbon needing victory by six points or more. It looked as if Portugal were home and dry but with a quarter of an hour to go Morocco got a converted try to pull back to a deficit of just one point. One more converted try would see them on to the next round -- to play Uruguay. It was not to be in those agonising last 15 minutes.
Morocco scored first. After Portugal had missed a penalty attempt they goaled one to lead 3-0. The Portuguese attacked, the Lions of the Atlas defended but were penalised and flyhalf Cardoso Pinto, who had scored all ten Portuguese points in their 10-5 first-leg victory, levelled the scores.
Captain and number eight Vasco Uva scored the try which put Portugal ahead -- 10-3 after Pinto's conversion.
That was the score at half-time.
Right from the kick-off for the second half the Moroccans attacked and made the most of a Portuguese attack to score a try. 10-8.
Penalties by Pinto made the score 16-8, and then Morocco's powerful pack drove a maul over the line for a try which Hicham Eziyar converted. 16-15 with a thrilling 15 minutes to play.
Portugal hung on and in fact had the chance to extend their lead but replacement Gonçalo Malheiro missed a penalty kick in injury time. The final whistle sounded soon afterwards.
Portugal now play, home and away, against Uruguay in March. The winner of that encounter will go to the 2007 World Cup and join a pool with New Zealand, Scotland, Italy and Romania. Portugal have not before been to a World Cup.
For Portugal the Argentinian prop Cristian Spachuck was back from his neck injury but David Mateus was out with an injured thigh and veteran Antonio Aguilar, who plays for Mont-de-Marsan in France's Pro D2 was still out injured.
Morocco's Nassim Arif was unconvincing in the first leg and was replaced by Hicham Eziyar. The forwards were reinforced by the return of Pau prop Mohamed Ben Bouhout. Jalil Narjissi, the hooker and usual prop, was not down to play last week also but he played. This week he is not down again as Agen have hooker problems -- not that the clubs prevent the players from playing in World Cup matches!
It was a great day of rugby at Estádio Universitário in Lisbon. It started at 11 in the morning with the little ones before the climactic répechage match.
The scorers:
For Portugal:
Try: Uva
Con: Pinto
Pens: Pinto 3
For Morocco:
Tries: A.N Other, A.N Other
Con: Eziyar
Pen: Eziyar
The teams:
Portugal: 15 Pedro Leal, 14 Pedro Carvalho, 13 Diogo Gama, 12 Diogo Mateus, 11 Miguel Portela, 10 Cardoso Pinto, 9 Luís Pissarra, 8 Vasco Uva (captain), 7 Juan Severino, 6 Paulo Murinello, 5 Marcello D'Orey, 4 Gonçalo Uva, 3 Rui Cordeiro, 2 João Correia, 1 Cristian Spachuk.
Morocco: 15 Ouajdi Mouhcine, 14 Tallavi, 13 Mihadji Tidjini, 12 Mouad Labbi, 11 Gharib Chahid, 10 Hicham Eziyar, 9 Kamal Essaoui, 8 Abdellatif Boutati (captain), 7 Faycal Boukhanoussa, 6 Housni Hicham, 5 Younes Ho, 4 Hamid Arif, 3 Mohamed Ben Bouhout, 2 Abdelkafi Abachri, 1 Mohamed Gouasmia.
Referee: Nigel Owens (Wales)
Touch judges: Richard Hughes, Huw F Lewis (both Wales)
