Van Rooyen praises big defensive effort in Lions’ entertaining URC win against Edinburgh
· Citizen
Lions coach Ivan van Rooyen credited his team’s strong defensive effort for earning them the chance to counterattack, as they ran in eight tries to three in their 54-17 United Rugby Championship (URC) thrashing of Edinburgh at Ellis Park on Saturday.
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The Lions scored a number of impressive long range tries, with half of them starting in their own 22m area, as they capitalised from turnover ball and ran the visitors’ defence ragged on their way to a big win.
Van Rooyen explained that they had noted the counterattack as a possible weakness of Edinburgh’s, and so it proved as they found a lot of joy in this area throughout the match.
“We are very proud of a big defensive effort. I think our collision was decent as well. We knew that if we were good in that department they might give us one or two counterattack options, and from there I thought we were exceptional,” said Van Rooyen after the match.
Lions captain Francke Horn was incredibly proud of his team’s efforts and said it was their hard work that allowed them to celebrate winning the SA Shield, which they were unable to do after their win over the Stormers as it hadn’t been confirmed yet, in style in front of their home supporters.
Unbelievable tries
“We scored some unbelievable tries, and that comes from hard work. It’s not just about scoring, it’s about being their and playing off each other,” explained Horn.
“You could see today that we are still a team with a lot of hunger. We said we need to back up our performances (from the local derbies) because the race to the top eight is so tight.
“We have to keep building and building, and I think it was a solid performance to celebrate winning the SA Shield.”
Lions utility forward Ruan Venter was named man-of-the-match after a superb try scoring performance, made all the more impressive after he was a late change, switching from flank to lock just before the match after Etienne Oosthuizen was ruled out due to illness.
“It was pleasant surprise, I was looking forward to having a go at No 4, so I am just very grateful for this opportunity,” said Venter in a post match TV interview.
“We knew we had to be more consistent this season. We set a goal for these last four home games to get four wins out of four and 20 points, so this is the first step towards that.
“You can see in the way that we are playing for each other and we have a collective goal that we are working towards at the end of the season.”