Lions ticked the right boxes

REACTION: The Lions achieved their two goals as they routed the Griffons in the last round of the Currie Cup league stage at Ellis Park on Saturday.

The Lions secured a home semifinal and moved to the top of the table with their 62-5 demolition of the Purple People Eaters.

They now face the Cheetahs next weekend after the men from Bloemfontein finished their league stage in fourth place with a 41-14 rout of the Pumas.

Lions coach Mziwakhe Nkosi said two boxes were ticked in that encounter.

The first was to bag five points and the second was to get momentum going into semis week.

“It was a difficult game.

“I think we were good for the five points.

“With the home semi in mind next week and not getting any injuries, the two objectives for us were to get the five points and secondly to get a bit of momentum going into the semis,” Nkosi explained.

“I think to a large degree we did that.”

Although the Lions were the dominant team for most of the match, Nkosi gave credit to the basement dwellers playing in their last game of the season.

“For the Griffons it was their last game of the season, so they were here to throw the ball around.

“At times, it got loose.

“But when we did tighten up, we scored one or two good tries,” the coach commented.

Nkosi was humble in his praise of a young squad that managed to take their side to the top of the pile, mostly without the help of their United Rugby Championship players.

“I don’t have to be too harsh on the team.

“Finishing the top of the log with a home semi is something to write home about.

“I think we will be good for it next week and put in a full week of prep.

“We were held up over the line three times, so there were good things, we’ve just got to be accurate and polish it up before the semifinal next week.”

It was evident that the Lions coaches were not always in agreement with the calls the referee Morne Ferreira made about the scrum penalties against them.

The visitors got stuck in and put the Lions on the backfoot, winning some scrum penalties which they were not able to turn into points.

“Without getting in too much trouble, I think we have a different view and a different perspective.

“We’ve cut one or two clips which we will send to Mark [Lawrence] and his team for better clarity

“We saw something different, let me put it that way.

“But at the end of the day, we are 50 feet away,” he explained.

The Lions might not bring in a host of URC players for the playoffs but Nkosi said a selection meeting will be held on Monday to make a decision on this.

“We will have a good selection meeting on Monday.

“We gave a whole contingent of our URC players a bite last week so we’ll see what the selection looks like on Monday.

“We are nursing one or two injuries, Morne Brandon, hopefully, he is good to go.

“But the bulk of the team will be these guys and we’ll see what Monday looks like from a selection point of view,” he revealed.