No complacency in Lions’ camp
VAN ROOYEN: THIS COULD STILL BE A SEE-SAW BATTLE
Skipper proud of his men after their nail-biting victory.
The Golden Lions might be back in Currie Cup contention, but they are not out of the woods by a long shot. However, captain Jacques van Rooyen was a delighted skipper after the close 36-33 win over the Blue Bulls at Ellis Park at the weekend.
He said, though, with the team enjoying a much-needed bye this weekend, they could see the table changing again despite currently being in third place and on level points with the second-placed Cheetahs.
“The plan is to go all the way, but the points are so close in the table. A couple of losses here and a couple of victories there for the other teams could see the top four still change a lot,” said Van Rooyen.
“It could still be a see-saw battle as we saw the Pumas beating Western Province last weekend, so it looks like anyone can win on any weekend.”
Van Rooyen scored one of the five Lions tries, but said hard work awaits before playing away to the Sharks.
“I think our discipline let us down in the second half at one or two scrums. It’s something we’ll have to work on in two weeks’ time.
“I’m very proud of the boys, though, it was a great game, thanks to the Bulls, we knew it was going to be very tough especially up front,” he said.
“Luckily we worked hard on our mauls and I’m very happy that we’d been able to score a couple of mauling tries.”
Van Rooyen said also the hard work in training on their scrums was starting to pay off.
“We knew the Bulls are a tough pack to scrum against and also a good mauling side,” he said.
“We worked hard on that in the previous week and fortunately it came off for us in the first couple of scrums.”