Davids laments set-piece woes

The home side struggled to get a foothold in the game in the first half against the team from Johannesburg, mainly due to their inability to hold onto to possession. 

In the end, the Lions outscored them by six tries to three for a comfortable victory.

"I am very disappointed in the performance of the team today," Davids told reporters after the match. 

"I just think that we let ourselves down. The game is very simple. You can only win games when you have good possession and I think our scrums and line-outs let ourselves down throughout the game."

He added: "I think we got exciting players. I think we got exciting backs to run with the ball, but if you don't get quality ball from your set pieces you are going to struggle and I think we must really look hard at this. 

"We had a frank discussion about this now and we need to take accountability around this to ensure that we produce better outcomes from our set pieces."

Davids believes his team's second-half performance at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium was a better representation of their strengths.

"I think we were asleep in the first half and it was a much better performance in the second half, but if you play against quality sides and you are not focussed from the start, you must stand behind the polls and that is what happened to us in the first half.

"We looked more energised [in the second half]. When we had opportunities, we looked quite good with the ball in hand, but then we also lose some patience when we get into the opposition 22 by not holding onto the ball for longer phases."

The Kings have a bye next week before they travel to Australia for matches against the Western Force, Reds and Waratahs.

@rugby365com