Lions coach Ivan van Rooyen says there’s “no time to sulk” after their disappointing start to this year’s Vodacom United Rugby Championship campaign, insisting the team must regroup quickly. But questions are mounting over whether the current coaching setup has what it takes to spark a turnaround with this group of players.
Last season, it already felt inevitable that the Lions would start looking for a new head coach, especially with Van Rooyen managing just a 42 per cent win record over five seasons at the helm.
But despite the grumblings around Ellis Park - and the fact that the Lions lost both their title sponsor and stadium sponsor and have not replaced them - Van Rooyen was kept in the job and the Lions once again made it their focus to win the Currie Cup.
Last season, that same decision saw them fade badly in the second part of the URC, and there is a danger this will happen again, as they were the only franchise to do so while others pulled their top players out of the competition.
BACK-TO-BACK LOSSES
The Lions have now started this season with back-to-back losses against Cardiff and Zebre, two sides that are not fancied to feature in the top six in the competition and who will struggle to make the playoffs.
Despite this, and their own obvious failings, Van Rooyen’s voicenote sent to media after the game talked about missed chances and took very little responsibility for the failings of the team.
While the results were similar in his first two years, Van Rooyen’s four seasons in charge of the Lions have seen them finish 12th, ninth (twice) and 11th, hardly the results their fans have been wanting to see.
And the question must be asked - if the same thing happens over and over again, why do the Lions persist with it? Few Lions fans will feel any confidence at this stage of the season that the team can do any better than the past six years with him in charge.
The failings against Zebre on Sunday were the same as what we have seen in the past few seasons. Players such as Quan Horn and Henco van Wyk inspire the team, Francke Horn leads from the front, but the team fails when it comes to getting over the line.
LOST THE GAME, RATHER THAN ZEBRE WINNING IT
Van Rooyen’s lament that they lost the game rather than Zebre winning says a lot about the state of Lions rugby at the moment.
“With four minutes to go, it was our game to win,” Van Rooyen said. “But unfortunately, we didn’t manage the kick-off well enough, put ourselves under pressure and allowed them an entry into our 22. It was way too easy, and they managed to score.”
“We spent way too much time defending our try line. We couldn’t get playing, we couldn’t get ball in the right areas and start to build pressure.
“That started to change in the second half. I think we were a lot more dynamic, we had a lot more momentum in attack, and the three tries we scored were really exciting.”
Van Rooyen failed to mention that two of those tries came when Zebre were down to 14 men and were long-range attacks. While they were impressive, the question must be asked why the Lions couldn’t replicate this in the rest of the game.
“Obviously we’re disappointed with the result. It shows you how small the margins in the URC are, and it shows you there isn’t a bad team in the competition, especially when you’re playing away,” he said.
“Now we’re prepping for Treviso. It’s a short week, so no time to sulk.”
For Lions fans though, the talk has all been heard before, and without evidence to the contrary, it wouldn’t be surprising if the same shortcomings in the team’s game plan and results show themselves again.