Cape Town – Being appointed as the captain of a rugby team is arguably the highest honour in the sport, but it can also be a tough old job if things are not going your way.
Lions skipper Marius Louw may have felt that the world was caving in on him ahead of Saturday’s United Rugby Championship clash against the Glasgow Warriors at Ellis Park.
The Johannesburg side had just lost 29-7 to his former team, the Sharks, at home, they were dealing with allegations of player unhappiness and shortcomings off the field during the recent trip to France, and then young forward Ruan Venter’s father Anton passed away on Wednesday.
Glasgow were clear favourites to win, even though they were missing several Scottish internationals on Six Nations duty, as they were on a 10-match unbeaten run and were fourth on the URC log.
But yet it was the Lions who recovered from conceding an early try to lead 24-7 in the first half via touchdowns by Sanele Nohamba, Francke Horn and Manuel Rass as they took the game to the opposition and put together some exciting passages of play with ball-in-hand.
Their determination was really tested in the second half, though, as there were yellow cards received by wing Van der Merwe and fullback Quan Horn – both for cynical infringements in the Lions 22 – and then replacement prop Ruan Dreyer was red-carded for a dangerous ruck clean-out.
But Louw’s team showed true resilience to maintain their shape in defence even when down to 13 men, and they claimed a crucial 35-24 triumph.
“It’s never ideal to concede the first try, and it was maybe not the best start. We knew what’s coming, and I thought we handled it well under the poles,” the No 12 said.
“We responded very well to how they were attacking, and I thought we placed them under pressure, which caused the errors. I can’t say it was an overall best performance from us, but there were many more good moments, and we rounded off more of our opportunities.
“Even though there were more chances that we left out there, we are very happy with what we produced.
“We don’t lack creating opportunities. If we lacked that, it would be a problem for us. So, it was just making sure in training that when we do create those opportunities, we finish those – and then we will take that into the game.
“Once we entered their 22, our execution was better – although in the second half, we left opportunities out there where we could have put them under the pump a little bit more.
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“We speak a lot about outstanding basics, and we didn’t do anything special. So, we knew that if we keep the ball and execute with outstanding basics, and that’s from the delivery of the lineout to ball-placement, to quick ball – winning the race around the corner against their forwards…
“I think that’s what our forwards did well, and we build a lot on outstanding basics and execution. Once we did that, we could keep going.”
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Points-Scorers
Lions 35 – Tries: Sanele Nohamba, Francke Horn, Manuel Rass, Edwill van der Merwe, Ruan Venter. Conversions: Gianni Lombard (2). Penalty: Lombard (2).
Glasgow 24 – Tries: Eli Caven, Cole Forbes, Tom Jordan, Thomas Gordon. Conversions: Jordan (2).
IOL Sport
