Despite sitting 13th and not making the Vodacom United Rugby Championship playoffs for the fourth consecutive season, Emirates Lions coach Ivan van Rooyen blamed “individual errors” for his side’s latest defeat at the hands of Welsh side Scarlets on Sunday and continued to maintain the team was “close” to something special.
The Lions' season had been one of disappointment, and Van Rooyen’s tenure in charge is looking worse and worse as time goes on. Appointed in 2019, the Lions coach has managed to escape the axe despite mediocre results and a run that has hardly inspired success despite one of the best junior systems in the country.
After his first two seasons produced no positive results, the Lions fired the assistant coaches, kept Van Rooyen for their entry into the URC and appointed the likes of ex-Boks Ricardo Loubscher and Jaque Fourie as his assistants.
Now, four seasons later, and as they are about to post their worst season results since Van Rooyen has taken over, he sits with a 47 per cent win record in the URC, with Lions fans wondering just when the golden age that he has promised will arrive.
On Sunday, once again they were the masters of their own demise, with the team failing to take the rallying cries from Fourie in the week to finish off the season with a flourish by posting another disappointing display.
Scarlets hopes of #VURC play-off rugby are still alive 💪
— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) May 11, 2025
They take the W in Johannesburg 👇#SSRugby pic.twitter.com/PeGt2JaYqY
YOUNG AND BUILDING?
Van Rooyen continued after the game to say the team was young and building, but after four years in the URC and a season that started off with four victories before the team slumped into a string of poor results, it is difficult to see how things will change without a change at the top.
The Lions surprised back in 2019 when Van Rooyen was appointed after being the Strength and Conditioning coach for Johan Ackermann’s side and his record in the URC over four seasons of just 33 wins from 70 matches isn’t one to boast about.
There is also the case of losing top players like Jordan Hendrikse and now Edwill van der Merwe to the Hollywoodbets Sharks, while last season’s URC Player of the Year, Sanele Nohamba departed for Japan after a fallout with the coaching staff.
Whatever the truth of that fallout, losing the Player of the Year from the previous season wasn’t a good look for the Lions.
Their early-season prediction of aiming for a top-four spot now also seems a long way away, but Van Rooyen on Sunday continued to talk about the disappointment and how the team felt they could have made it if some things had gone their way.
“We felt we had four home games and we felt if we could win all of them, there was a real opportunity to end anywhere from six to eight. To lose two of the three currently is frustrating. We are really proud of who we are and we want to make Emirates Airline Park a really tough place to play. So I’m really disappointed with those results. It's a short week for us, we have to get ready for next week,” he said.
“It is a huge disappointment, we set our targets on it and we started well on it. It is always tough January, February and March when you are bouncing back between Europe and here, but even then we felt we were there to put ourselves in a position to qualify.
“If we scored the last try last week, we would have been within a point of seventh or eighth, thats how close the margins were. We felt we were not consistent enough to be there yet. It is big learning for us, for a group and individuals.
“We are young, so it is a challenge and that speaks to consistency, but that is also the challenge.”
Consistency has been a massive issue for the Lions and their lack of it was a major factor all season, with their defence coming under more pressure than it should have more often than not.
And while they prepare for their last game of the season, whatever happens cannot give them a finish that will be as good as their ninth spot last season.
That fact will make their fans wonder how things will change if the approach stays the same.