Lions coach wants his players to be braver in Bulls rematch

Lions coach Cash van Rooyen has seen enough good stuff from his team for him to believe they can turn the tables on the Bulls when the sides meet for the second time in 10 days at Loftus Versfeld in a Currie Cup semi-final next weekend.

After going down 22-15 to the Bulls in a round-robin match on Wednesday the Lions will return to Pretoria for the playoffs next Saturday. They now have an opportunity to reflect on the game, regroup and recharge their batteries.

“We now have 10 days to go and fix the errors we made in Wednesday’s game and get ourselves ready for a return to Loftus,” said Van Rooyen.

After going 9-0 up after initial scrum dominance, the Lions lost momentum and went behind 19-9 early in the second half after the only try of the game was scored by Bulls scrumhalf Embrose Papier.

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“We created some good chances on attack and the frustrating thing is we didn’t capitalise on them,” said Van Rooyen. “We had all the momentum initially, but then it turned against us,” he said.

The Bulls’ narrow defence also put a lot of pressure on the Lions, who for the first time in ages were left try-less in a match.

“I honestly can’t remember when last we didn’t manage to score a try in a game,” said Van Rooyen.

“I think we need to be braver and more ambitious on attack while we need to be more clinical to break down the defence,” he said.

“There’s a lot of stuff to work on and a lot of things to improve, but there are also a lot of indicators to make us excited about the rematch.”

The other semi-final will be between Western Province and the Sharks, at Newlands.

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