Cash pinpoints Lions' fragilities ahead of Glasgow meeting
REACTION: Ivan van Rooyen pinpointed the areas in which the Lions fell short and need to improve ahead of their match against Glasgow Warriors following a 10-31 defeat to Edinburgh in Round Four of the United Rugby Championship.
The Lions were down 3-5 in the first half and had an opportunity to head into the break with their noses in front after being awarded a penalty in front of the posts.
Instead, the Lions chanced their arm and opted to scrum before knocking the ball on, which saw them trailing at the break, before a second-half blowout by Edinburgh put the result to bed.
*Also read: Everitt’s Edinburgh stay top as Lions crumble in Scotland
Van Rooyen backed his players for declining the three points at the end of the first half and said it wouldn’t have made much of a difference in the overall match outcome.
“The call was to go to the posts, but if the team feels they have ascendancy in the game, which was the case before half-time,” Van Rooyen said in an online post-match press conference on Friday evening.
“It was a big call we made not to take the points, and had we scored from that scrum it could’ve been a different result, but in saying that our second half performance wasn’t good enough.
“Our [second half] execution wasn’t there [not] because we didn’t score from that scrum towards the end of the first half; I mean, we were 30 centimetres away from scoring.
“In the moment, they could’ve taken the three points and go 6-5 into the break, but the players felt they had an opportunity and the momentum, and we backed that call.
“But as I said, I don’t think that would’ve necessarily changed the second half; our execution had to be better there.”
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The Lions had the upper hand in the scrums but failed to get much purchase from their dominance, which is something Van Rooyen said the Lions will take up with match official Peter Martin to ensure clarity ahead of their clash against Franco Smith’s Glasgow Warriors.
“I don’t want to comment too much on the referees, but I do believe that there were opportunities where we could’ve been rewarded at the breakdown and scrums.
“But we’ll leave that for the review process and work with the match official on which pictures we saw and double-check the pictures he saw.”
Van Rooyen added: “Apart from all the frustration and the need for finding a solution, Glasgow Warriors will pose a different challenge.
“Edinburgh played well tonight [Friday]; they isolated us at the back, once we closed the gate a little bit sooner because they pose threats out wide.
“We know Glasgow is a team who loves to play, and if our discipline isn’t good, they will kick to the corner and maul us with 10 or 12 players, so discipline is important for next week.
“We made three poor defensive decisions against Edinburgh and all of them resulted in tries against us, so that’s also something we obviously need to look at.
“And on attack we lost a bit of shape as well; we didn’t really get momentum early on, and that makes it difficult in those [wet and windy] conditions to generate momentum.
“That forces you to go into a kicking game and hope that you get the ball back or for a favourable outcome, so yes, there’s a lot of small things we need to work on and focus on.”
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