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Johannesburg - Despite winning handsomely on the weekend against the Jaguares and keeping their unbeaten record in the opening two rounds in-tact, Lions coach Swys de Bruin was frustrated at the fact his team started off so poorly in their 47-27 win over the Argentine side.
The Jaguares raced to a 10-0 lead early on as the Lions made a plethora of mistakes and were hardly at their best, but still managed to recover thanks to some inspiration individual play on the afternoon, according to the supersport.com website.
De Bruin knows that battles will be tougher in future and was frustrated by the start, but did point out that the team did well to recover and eventually power to an easy win.
“It was frustrating. It was one of those – we’re so keen to play, we’re so keen to show what we can do and it was mistake on mistake on mistake. But I think we must look at the end result – 47 points against an almost full-on international side – we will take it.
“I must give the guys credit. We train to play a brand and if it doesn’t come off I don’t want to go conservative. Then it is against what we stand for. It was very frustrating at the end of the day.”
De Bruin said his management will be hard at work looking at the mistakes and how they can rectify matters, but he never wanted to criticise his charges for the effort, even if the result wasn’t always what they wanted.
“Ja it is still early days. But they are professionals. We will have to go and analyse on Monday but it is sometimes just a bit of patience and keep the ball. The tendency is to play fast and the offload comes too early or at the wrong time. I must say, three or four of those offloads – if they did stick – would have been amazing tries and that is what we want to score,” he smiled.
“This is our second game, we didn’t play friendlies so this is our second game this year, but most of the guys have played. I must say we had some fantastic linebreaks in the backline. That one where Sylvian Mahuza scored in the far corner is one to remember.”
The Lions will cross the Jukskei this weekend for the big derby against the Bulls and while they will go in as favourites, will be wary of the Bulls recent form in downing the Hurricanes in their opening game.
