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Johannesburg - Lions coach Swys de Bruin was making no excuses for his side's 38-35 loss to the Blues at Ellis Park on Saturday.
"We're human," he offered having just watched his side concede two tries in the final five minutes as they fell to their first loss of the year.
The Lions had lost captain Warren Whiteley to injury in the first half and lacked the composure to close out the match, but De Bruin said his side's performance was poor throughout.
"We battled all day to protect our ball. They're a very dangerous side when it comes to turnovers and they were quick at the breakdown. That was it," he said.
"At the end it was a game of margins but we have to close games out like this.
"If you lose it right at the death it's not nice, but that's life.
"We didn't focus on our job at hand."
De Bruin added that the loss of Whiteley could not be used as an excuse.
"Warren is a one of a kind and a fantastic leader but the other guys must stand up," said De Bruin.
"Our whole spine plays for the Springboks and there are a lot of leaders in the team.
"It did go into a ding-dong battle at the end, but we had enough to close it down.
"We're human. We'll turn this around to make it a positive. You win games and you lose games."
Whiteley was equally disappointed by what he had seen.
"It's disappointing because our strength is the last 20 minutes and that's when they actually took the game away from us," he said.
The Lions are in action again on Saturday when they host the Sunwolves.
