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The Lions have drawn first blood in the promotion, relegation battle against the Southern Kings.
The visitors silenced a partisan crowd of more than 30-thousand at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium on Friday night, beating the home-side 26-19, to leave the Kings future in Super Rugby in the balance.
The return leg is in Johannesburg next week
The Johannesburg side led 19-14 at half-time and went further ahead when centre Stokkies Hanekom crossed for his second try in the 66th minute, Elton Jantjies adding the conversion to make it 26-14.
But shortly afterwards Dylan Des Fountain was sent to the sin bin and the Kings came storming back for replacement lock Steven Sykes to power over.
Replacement flyhalf George Whitehead missed the conversion, but, in the end, it proved inconsequential because the Lions did an excellent job of holding the home side at bay for the rest of the game.
The Kings took a bonus point from the game for ending within seven points of the Lions, but it will be little consolation as they now look ahead to a tough away fixture next weekend.
