Lions coach Ivan van Rooyen and stand-in skipper Jaco Visagie admitted that adopting a more conservative gameplan had been key to Saturday’s vital 26-7 home win over Connacht in the United Rugby Championship.
The win over the Irish visitors, by three tries to one, ended a run of five straight defeats for the struggling Johannesburg franchise. The performance was a measured, controlled one, in stark contrast to the error-strewn, helter-skelter clash against Benetton a week ago.
Player of the Match Renzo du Plessis scored the opening try for the home side, while JC Pretorius and winger Edwill van der Merwe scored the other two five-pointers.
“I think we made fewer mistakes. We were more disciplined and played more in certain areas,” Van Rooyen said in the post-match interview.
“I think we got it right with 50/50 opportunities on our side. I think Edwill (van der Merwe) was really good on the air. Krappie (Morne van den Berg) and Nico (Steyn) kicked well and that gave us the chance to attack.
“I think our accuracy was much better, our discipline was much better.”
Coach ‘Cash’ credited the vast improvement in his team’s play to the switch to a more conservative game plan.
“If you’re not accurate enough, you give the opponents the ball back 30m from your goalline,” he said.
“We wanted to be more conservative just to put early pressure on Connacht and the kickers did really well with their work rate to give us opportunities on the counter. So we were definitely more conservative.”
Skipper Visagie was standing in for the injured No 8 Franke Horne. The hooker stressed the importance of the win in restoring the players’ self-belief.
“The last few weeks were difficult, and that’s why we were more conservative,” he said. “At the moment there are too many errors the harder we work. It’s almost like quicksand. So we went more conservative to eliminate the errors.
“The win was very important. If you lose a few matches in a row the belief dips. So the win was very important for the players to see that we have what it takes to win matches.
“We were more conservative, so we we said we’re not going to play in our half and we managed that very well. We got the 50/50s when we got on the attack.
“We obviously knew we wanted to get five points and we fell short. And there’s been some questions of why do you go for poles, but obviously you have to win first. And if you look at the game, there was opportunities to score tries.”
He was able to laugh about Nico Steyn coughing up the ball up in the tackle when all he had to do was dot down.
The skipper was also asked if the energy and body language in the Lions camp was different this weekend compared to recent lackluster performances.
“Obviously, we focused on how we want to play first. The good start helped us to keep that body language. From there everyone bought into the plan.”
What’s more satisfying for coach ‘Cash’, the four log points or the performance?
“I think it’s a nice mixture of both,” he said. “Because of the good performance we had the best shot for the win. But the discipline to stick to the plan (was most satisfying) for me: the zonal discipline, how we wanted to play, our defensive discipline. We were really honest in the week around that.
“It’s almost putting the puzzle together, with everyone understanding what we wanted to do and how we wanted to do it.”
The Lions will have to piece together similar performances against Scarlets on May 11 and Ospreys the following weekend with their slim URC play-off hopes on the line. They will also have to rely on other results going their way, however.
