Lions roar into final
LIONS COACH FEELS ‘HUMBLED’ BY HIS MEN’S EFFORTS
His fairy-tale continues with a stunning victory.
Ecstatic Lions coach Johan Ackermann did not believe a better script could have been written after his team earned the right to host the Super Rugby final against the Crusaders this weekend.
With expectations on the Lions set to be lifted by their superb display, they came from behind to overturn a 22-3 deficit late in the first half by running the Hurricanes ragged to win 44-29 in their semifinal clash at Ellis Park on Saturday.
“It feels unreal and the reason for that is that I always hoped the day I finished here would be in front of our own fans on our own field,” Ackermann said of his potential fairytale finish, with his time at the union set to come to an end.
“I just feel so humbled. The journey has been so special the last two years with a special bunch of guys, and they just proved it again.”
Ackermann felt the tide had started turning just before the break when prop Jacques van Rooyen bulldozed his way over to start their comeback effort.
“First of all I felt if we could score before half-time it would be great because 22-10 sounded a lot better than 22-3,” he said.
“At half-time it was quite simple. The forwards I felt were good in the set-phases so we didn’t change much there.”
On the attack they didn’t tweak much either, he insisted, but he had told the team they needed to be more direct.
“I asked the players to really lift their intensity and to reset the score, forget about the first half. It’s 0-0 again, just play 40 minutes of good rugby and whatever happens we can live with that,” he said.
“It seemed the players really did that. They put the first half behind them and came out and played some great rugby.”
Lions captain Jaco Kriel said it helped to have a chat with referee Jaco Peyper.
“I was asking the referee to check the off-sides and he said if there’s no ruck there can’t be off-sides,” he said.
“He also wasn’t happy with all the chat he got from the players so it came down to me, and I had to ask the players to just calm it down, play the game, leave the ref alone and just worry about their own jobs.”
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