Ivan van Rooyen's team clip the Ospreys' wings
PJ Botha of Lions is tackled by Scott Baldwin of the Ospreys in the United Rugby Championship match at Swansea.com Stadium in Swansea, Wales on September 24 2022.
Image: Chris Fairweather/Getty Images
Lions coach Ivan van Rooyen put his team's 28-27 win over the Ospreys in Swansea down to growing belief in his camp.
The Lions won for the third time on foreign shores in the United Rugby Championship (URC) to make it a clean sweep for SA teams in round two of this season's competition.
They rode a few punches and delivered a spirited second half effort punctuated by tries from first Sanele Nohamba that got them back into the game, and a converted effort from Edwill van der Merwe with about 10 minutes to go to hand them a slender lead.
The Lions then kept the experienced home side at bay with some stout, disciplined defence to secure the win.
“There is more belief in ourselves and what we are doing, what we tried in preseason, how we want to play and what we want to represent,” Van Rooyen said.
“This is a good away win against an unbelievable Ospreys team. It is good to start the tour with a win, obviously.”
His team showed encouraging signs in the first half but two quick tries by the hosts put the Lions on the back foot as they went 19-13 down into the break.
“We felt at half time we gave them two relatively easy tries,” the coach said. “We felt it was more individual and system errors, than brilliance from them.
“We put them under quite a bit of pressure defensively. [We felt] if we could minimise the penalties and keep on working hard we could turn it in our favour. We saw that in the last two, three minutes.”
There were still some silly penalties, like when flank Sibusiso Sangweni lifted the ball-carrier in the tackle and against Nohamba for unsportsmanlike conduct before a line-out, but the Lions cleaned up their act by the time the game was halfway into its final quarter.
Earlier Nohamba pounced on a loose ball after opposite number Rhys Webb got into a tangle to sprint clear to reduce the deficit. Though the Lions conceded another penalty they made the telling score after some sterling build-up work in which the Smith brothers, JP and Ruan, featured prominently allowing Van der Merwe to apply the finishing touches.
The visitors held on gamely in the closing minutes.
Van Rooyen, however, pointed to the pitfalls of early-tour euphoria when he reminded what happened last season.
“We also won the first one against Zebre last year and in the second game against the Scarlets we crashed. It is important for us to back it up with a good week of preparation,” he said about the build-up to Friday's clash against Cardiff.
“It is going to be two desperate teams,” he said about both teams who have won and lost a game each so far.
Van Rooyen wants the Lions to be more consistent in the set pieces and stop coughing up ball in attack. “We'd go through five, six, seven phases and really look threatening. Those two areas will be a big focus for us this week said the coach, adding: “I'm really proud of the guys' effort.”