Lions were good enough says Van Rooyen
REACTION: If the Lions weren’t good enough against Leinster in their United Rugby Championship match at Ellis Park on Saturday, the loss would not hurt so much, coach Ivan van Rooyen said.
Struggling to hide his disappointment, Van Rooyen said he felt they did more than enough to win, but pinpointed the Lions’ game management as their downfall in the game that saw Leinster absorb two yellow cards but still go on to score 18 unanswered points in the final quarter.
This enabled the Irish giants to negate a 26-14 half-time deficit and clinch a sterling 39-36 victory, even after being reduced to 13 players at one stage.
Although the men from Johannesburg managed to pick up two bonus points through some exhilarating tries, which moved them up from 11th to 10th, they still could not finish in the top eight.
“I really wanted the guys to win tonight, to make it special for various reasons. To keep us alive, for working extremely hard, Jaco Kriel’s last home game. This feeling is almost like the wind getting knocked out. If we weren’t good enough, then we would probably feel different. But we did more than enough to win,” the coach explained.
The tries scored by the home side were well constructed and involved brilliant interplay resulting in spurts of beautiful rugby by guys like Edwill van der Merwe, Sanele Nohamba, captain Marius Louw and Gianni Lombard. The latter scored a great solo try that can quite easily go on the list of best tries in the competition.
“In the middle of the season we were too one dimensional, but tonight you saw a lot more dynamic attack, a lot better movement and chances created. And then in the last five minutes to fall flat from that. We had the opportunity to beat them and just didn’t do it in the end,” Van Rooyen candidly said.
Captain Marius Louw agreed. “We dominated most areas of the game. We knew they were going to come back and fire shots. I think we put them under a lot of pressure with our attack which forced the yellow cards and the penalty try.
“And then we just gave it back to them on a silver platter. Our discipline wasn’t good enough. That sums it up for me. Leinster is a quality side, it doesn’t matter who plays for them. They will execute, and they did.”
Van Rooyen said the Lions’ inability to get bonus points early in the season, came back to bite them. “Before tonight ourselves, the Sharks and the Bulls had the same amount of wins. The difference was the bonus points. There was a period of five or six games where we didn’t get a single bonus point.
“We didn’t play dynamic enough to get bonus points and score enough tries. When we lost, we lost badly. After that we started scoring four, five or six tries per game. At one stage I didn’t think we were good enough to beat the other SA teams. Now I think we can be really competitive.
“As sore as it is now, we are really excited with where we are going with the team and our growth. We are really excited for the next season.”
The Lions now face Zebre in their final match at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday.
