United Rugby Championship: Ivan van Rooyen encouraged by another Lions triumph
Although his team are not the finished product yet, Lions head coach Ivan van Rooyen was encouraged by their performance in Sunday’s 32-15 triumph over the Scarlets in Johannesburg.
That result comes on the back of their 33-25 victory over the Dragons and has elevated them to fifth position in the United Rugby Championship (URC) standings.
The Lions had to work hard for their latest win and only clinched their bonus point in the game’s latter stages when man of the match Emmanuel Tshituka crossed for his second, and his team’s fourth try.
“There was some improvement from our last game. We got five points, although we made hard work of it. Sunday lunch, nice and hot, and you could see at the end that everyone was pretty tired,” Van Rooyen told the Citizen.
“But there were a lot of good things that we can take out of the game and use as a foundation to move forward.”
The home side made a fine start and held a deserved 18-5 lead at half-time, courtesy of tries from Rabz Maxwane and Tshituka, while Jordan Hendrickse impressed with accurate goal-kicking, with the Welsh region’s only points coming via a Dan Davis five-pointer.
Tighter affair after half-time
The second half was a tighter contest with Jaco Kriel and Tshituka crossing the whitewash for the Lions while the Scarlets were rewarded with tries from Tom Rogers and Vaea Fifita.
Despite being amongst the URC‘s frontrunners at the tournament’s halfway stage, Van Rooyen said their position on the table is not something which he is focusing on.
“We are not really analysing the log at this stage, We feel we have enough things to fix on our side. But going into the second half of the tournament sitting fifth is a lot better than last year so we will take it,” he added.
The Lions turn their attention to the European Challenge Cup over the next two weeks and they kick off that campaign with back-to-back home fixtures against the Dragons and Stade Francais on December 10 and 16.
Click Here: Blues rugby store