Van Rooyen bemoans Lions lack of consistency after dismal UK tour

Lions coach Ivan van Rooyen bemoaned their lack of consistency after a dismal United Rugby Championship (URC) and Challenge Cup tour to the UK that saw them fall to three defeats and almost effectively end their season.

In the URC the Lions were beaten 20-17 by Cardiff in Wales and thrashed 42-0 by Glasgow Warriors in Scotland, which saw them drop from eighth to 14^th place on the log and put them in major danger of missing out on the competition playoffs again.

They followed that up with another poor showing this past Friday night as they went down 24-12 to Edinburgh in their Challenge Cup last 16 clash to be knocked out of the competition, and now heading back to SA with their season hanging by a thread.

The Lions will be kicking themselves, particularly for their performance against Cardiff as they should have won that match, while they were completely outplayed by Glasgow and a miserable first half cost them dearly against Edinburgh.

They now have four URC pool matches left to try and force themselves into the top eight to qualify for the knockouts, which is possible with how congested the log is, but it isn’t in their hands as they need other teams to slip up as well to get them there.

Difficult tour

Speaking about their difficult tour, Van Rooyen admitted his dissatisfaction, but said there were learnings and a few positives to take out of it, while he focused on their costly errors that stunted their efforts to beat Edinburgh.

“We are pretty disappointed with the loss (against Edinburgh) and the two previous results. It’s three very different games in terms of weather and tests, so a lot to learn from the tour and a lot to improve,” said Van Rooyen.

“There was still some good character and fight. I think if I look at the second half against Glasgow, not conceding anything after being smashed in the first half, and again on Friday, we showed some good character and fight.

“However, that speaks to our start. We are pretty disappointed with our first 40 minutes in the last two games and just the consistency thereof. So it’s not an effort thing, it’s just the consistency.

“We made 11 errors in the last 30 metres of the try line, and all the errors were on attack. So it makes it very difficult to convert pressure into points. Good fight back from us, but then crucial moments like the last try came in and took our comeback opportunity away.”

The Lions have never made the URC knockouts, and face an uphill task to do that with four pool games remaining, and will likely need to target four bonus point wins to give them the best possible opportunity.

They have this coming weekend off, with the Champions and Challenge Cup quarterfinals to be played, before heading into their finishing home run against Benetton, Connacht, Scarlets and Ospreys.