'Emotional' Louw praise Lions' character 

REACTION: In what was arguably one of the most Bizarre games in the 2024/5 Challenge Cup, with inclement weather at the centre of it, the Lions managed to get their campaign underway with a 43-35 win over Pau at Ellis Park.

The match started an hour after the original kick-off time due to thunder and lightning and threw both side’s preparation into disarray.

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Lions captain Maruis Louw admitted that the side had a rollercoaster of emotions due to the circumstances beyond their control.

“It was a little bit of an emotional ride, some of the guys took their pre-workout at the right time for kick-off and then as the warm-up got postponed some of the guys got a bit agitated.

“I think the guys responded well, we knew it’s going to be a challenge to keep yourself calm a bit and then make that switch to go up again.”

When asked if he ever played in a match with so many disruptions, Louw said it wasn’t his first rodeo, but it definitely wasn’t as bizarre as the clash on Saturday night.

“Not so bad, I spoke to coach Cash [Ivan van Rooyen] earlier that when I still played for the Sharks in a Currie Cup clash against the Lions, it was very similar.

“The kick-off wasn’t delayed as long, there were some disruption at half-time so I had a bit of a taste of these circumstances that helped me try and keep the boys calm at times, but I feel all the players individually handled it well.”

Van Rooyen gave his view on the possibility of replaying the match after it was brought to a halt after 55 minutes.

“We were aware of it, we know European laws are 60 minutes [for a match to be deemed complete due to inclement weather] and in South Africa we’re used to it being 40 minutes.

“We thought at that moment we were busy clinching the match and taking it away from them, but we also expected once we returned to the field at 55 minutes you’d expect to see out the final 25 minutes.”

Van Rooyen is optimistic about his side’s chances in the competition, with Ospreys’ loss to Montpellier throwing their pool wide open.

“It was important for us to get the first win, the last game [against Ospreys] we spoke quite a bit about it from our side,” Van Rooyen told @rugby365com.

“I see that Montpellier had a really good result against Ospreys, that’s our next game in the EPCR so another good challenge for us away and then we got the Dragons back home.

“A little bit of travel for us but it’s important for us to get off to a good start and getting five points [against Pau] was vital.”

He also opened up on the Stormers challenge next weekend and their position in the URC that could lead to Champions Cup qualification next season.

“Currently we’ll take it game for game, I see the Stormers have left behind quite a bit of their players so they obviously put a big focus and emphasis on next week, so a big South African derby just before Christmas.”

Image credit @JPV