Lions did enough to win, says De Bruin

The Lions had done enough to win Saturday’s Super Rugby encounter against the Stormers‚ despite falling just short at Newlands, coach Swys de Bruin said.

Stormers replacement scrumhalf Herschel Jantjies sniped over almost seven minutes into injury time for a try that levelled the scores.

SP Marais slotted the conversion to give the Stormers a vital 19-17 win that ended a four-year losing streak against the Lions.

The Lions dominated the first half and led 14-6 at the break as the Stormers conceded nine penalties and a yellow card in that period.

In the final quarter, the Lions had to repel a fierce Stormers onslaught and De Bruin said they had been unlucky not to have been on the right side of some calls that could have seen them through.

Lions hooker Malcolm Marx appeared to have made one of his trademark steals when he swooped over a ball late in the match, but referee Egon Seconds failed to award the penalty.

“Well done to the Stormers for surviving the Malcolm Marx steals there at the end‚” De Bruin said with a large dollop of sarcasm.

“I don’t know how long you have to steal a ball‚ but that was good from them.

“You can never comment on the refs‚ you have to look at your own faults first.

“Egon was a great player and he understands the game‚ so it would be totally unfair for me to comment on his performance.

“We should have used more of our chances in the first half, perhaps‚” De Bruin said.

“But I also believe we did enough to win the game at the end. It’s so disappointing because at halftime I thought we had been tactically smart and played well.

“But congratulations to Robbie [Fleck] and his team‚ fighting right to the end.

“That was good for them.” Lions captain Warren Whiteley suffered a pectoral muscle injury and failed to finish the match.

De Bruin said it was too early to know the full extent of the injury, but he was concerned.

“Wazza [Whiteley] is an unbelievable person and leader‚” De Bruin said. “He’s so passionate. It was so bad for him and us that he went off.

“You should have seen his emotion.

“He’s so full of passion. But I’m still proud of guys like Elton [Jantjies] and Kwagga [Smith].

“The leadership was good. “We will find out about the seriousness of the injury.

“It doesn’t look positive. We hope it will be all right. We will have to see.”