Classic Lions will meet Argentina in the final of the World Rugby Classic on Saturday after their narrow victory over the Springboks at the National Sports Club last night.

In a hard-fought encounter between two totally committed sides, the giant Lions team always seemed to just have the edge.

They got off to a fine start, rocking their opponents within 20 seconds when centre Derek McAleese burst through and held off two defenders close to the line to score.

Prop William Hills equalised three minutes before half-time, forcing his way through a crowd of defenders after sustained South Africa pressure had won them a line-out a yard from their opponents' line. The conversion put the Sprinboks 7-5 ahead.

But it was a lead short-lived as McAleese put his name on the scoresheet again seconds before half-time when he popped over a simple penalty in front of the posts to give the Lions an 8-7 advantage at the interval.

And when wing Keith Crossan scored his fourth try of the tournament from a short crash ball in the centres after 37 minutes, the game seemed up for the Sprinboks.

But late pressure brought its reward and a flowing move ended with Helgar Muller taking Irven October's pass on the overlap to bring them within three points of the Lions with two minutes to go. October converted a tricky place kick to narrow the difference further but the Lions defence stood firm in the onslaught.

Lions skipper Jonathan Griffiths, who won three caps for Wales, said the performance was "a great improvement'' on the victory over Uruguay in their first game.

"Obviously you've got to have a few games together to get to know each other and I thought we showed a bit better tonight, we kept it a bit tighter,'' he said.

"We showed a bit of character after they took the lead and managed to score a try but we were a bit disappointed in the end to nearly let them in.'' Bermuda 18 Uruguay 0 Centre Mike Gorrie booked Bermuda a date in the Plate final, scoring two tries as World Classic virgins Uruguay were over-run.

Gorrie struck shortly after Keith Hodgkins had given the hosts the lead with a penalty early on and again two minutes from time to set up a crunch tie with Team America on Saturday.

Flanker Sean Field-Lament scored Bermuda's other try eight minutes into the second half, but they then had to withstand a period of concerted pressure from the South Americans.

Uruguay might have gained some consolation after Bermuda conceeded two penalties in quick succession close to their own line, but valiant defending kept them out.

Bermuda captain Alvin Harvey was delighted with the performance.

"It was a great effort,'' he said afterwards. "The guys were focussed.

"We wanted to get a good start and we made a good start and that settled us down a bit.

"We needed to brush up on our mistakes from Tuesday -- we made a lot of errors against South Africa. We lessened our mistakes, and the composure was there a little more.'' And the defence was singled out for special praise by the Bermuda wing.

"The defence was tremendous,'' he said. "We were coming up to meet them at the ball rather than standing off and we knew we had to do that to keep them out.

"We gave a good account of ourselves on Tuesday, we gave a better one tonight, so everybody's happy with that.'' TRY AGAIN -- Bermuda, seen here conceeding a score against South Africa in the World Classic, have a chance to pick up some silverware after beating Uruguay to win a place in Saturday's Plate final. South Africa were not so lucky last night, going down in a close battle with the Classic Lions.