Lions coach Ivan van Rooyen: ‘Feels like wind knocked out of me’

Lions boss Ivan van Rooyen couldn’t hide his disappointment after his team gave up a 15-point lead to lose to Leinster in a thrilling United Rugby Championship match at Ellis Park on Saturday.

The Lions led 36-21 with just over 15 minutes to play in the penultimate round match, but conceded two late tries and a late penalty to lose 39-36.

Leinster had also been reduced to playing with 13 men at one stage when two of their players were sin-binned for professional fouls.

‘Special win’

“I feel sorry for the guys,” said Van Rooyen afterwards. “They’ve worked really hard in the last few weeks and we showed what we can do, and I was hoping we could make this a special win.

“I wanted the guys to win. It was Jaco Kriel’s last home game, and I felt we did enough to win. It feels like the wind has been knocked out of me.”

The Lions scored four first half tries and were awarded a penalty try in the second period, but failed to close out the game.

“Our game management wasn’t good at the end,” conceded Van Rooyen. “Our kicking was disorganised … we gave Leinster a chance to punish us, and they did.

“There are small margins at play, and today (Saturday) it was the last five minutes that was the difference (between winning and losing).”

Errors and discipline

Captain Marius Louw said poor discipline and some silly errors cost his team a shot at becoming the first URC side to beat Leinster this season.

“We dominated most areas of the game, put them under so much pressure that they conceded a penalty try and had two men binned … and then we gave it back to them on a silver platter. It was silly errors on our part that cost us.”

The Lions are now out of the URC playoff mix. Even though they picked up two bonus points and moved up from 11th to 10th they have 40 points and cannot finish in the top eight. They face Zebre in their final match at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday.

Leinster coach Leo Cullen praised his team for staying in the fight in their first visit to Joburg and playing at altitude.

“It was hotter than the guys are used to and we were at altitude, so the guys showed great spirit and character to win at the end,” said Cullen.

“I’m delighted … we were under the pump at a stage in the first half and we lost two men to the bin. It’s a young team and they would have learned a lot. But we’re next up against the Bulls, and they’ll be fired up with a top eight spot on the line.”