URC: Lions to welcome back senior stars for Edinburgh match

Fresh off a bonus point win over Ulster to get their United Rugby Championship (URC) campaign off to the perfect start, the Lions are set to be bolstered by some returning players ahead of their match against Edinburgh at Ellis Park on Saturday.

The Lions went into the Ulster match without a number of first choice players, such as captain Marius Louw, flank JC Pretorius and wing Richard Kriel, while scrumhalf Morne van den Berg was on Springbok duty, and most of them could be in line to return this week.

“There’s a group of four or five guys that trained with us on Thursday and Friday, possibly they can be back within the next two weeks but we’ll have to go through the medical processes,” explained Lions coach Ivan van Rooyen.

Edinburgh

Looking at the challenge Edinburgh will bring, Van Rooyen is expecting a strong performance after they suffered a tight opening loss against Leinster, before pushing the Bulls hard as they went down 22-16 at Loftus over the past weekend.

“Altitude won’t affect them. They are a quality team. They have bought and developed some promising players over the pre-season,” said Van Rooyen.

“I see they are one of the pre-tournament favourites, to be the side that really improves and be in contention for the cup.

“They had a great outing (losing 33-31 to Leinster), and they are a quality team with a lot of South Africans and international players.”

First Ulster win

Despite picking up their first ever win over Ulster in the URC, and doing it comfortably by a scoreline of 35-22, Van Rooyen says there is still plenty to work on for the Lions.

That includes how they finish and start halves, after they allowed Ulster back into the game with a try just before and straight after the halftime break.

“You’re never going to want to concede five minutes before halftime, and you’ll always want to probably see if you can score first points after,” said Van Rooyen.

“We spoke about and worked on that quite a bit, but to concede just before and after (halftime) is obviously something we’ll have a look at, and also the manner in which we conceded.

“We really worked hard for 39 minutes and to let it slip in the last minute and then go rest for 12 minutes, come out and concede again, so it’s something we’ll look at as a team and we’ll try to rectify as quick as possible.

“We also created a lot of opportunities that we didn’t round off, and that is a positive that we created them.”