AUDIO: The Lions continued with their winning ways in the Currie Cup and are challenging the top spot in the standings after their emphatic win over Western Province at Ellis Park on Saturday.
With their five tries bonus-point win the Lions cemented their position in second place (28), just three points behind the 31 of the Bulls.
The in-form Lions have won six out of their seven outings and conceded the least points in the competition (156).
Flank Renzo du Plessis scored another blistering hat trick of tries and seems to improve week after week.
He is undoubtedly challenging for a place in the Lions’ United Rugby Championship squad with these performances.
After the game Lions coach Mziwakhe Nkosi spoke about the bunch of quality youngsters that are leading the Lions’ charge in the Currie Cup.
“Renzo [du Plessis] is great, he has grown with leaps and bounds. He came off the bench at the start of the Currie Cup with one or two things we had to sort out in his game.
“With ball in hand, he is exciting, he is learning to do the not-so-fancy stuff off the ball.
“And now he is causing havoc around the edges so it’s good to see and he is another guy who is getting his opportunity who was game-starved in the URC.
“He is a guy we are excited to see. As and when he gets older and gets more experience, he will be able to use his athleticism a whole lot more than what he is using now,” the coach commented.
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Lions’ prop RF Schoeman had the enviable task of fronting up to Springbok Steven Kitshoff in the scrums.
Nkosi explained how vast the age gap really was.
“These are young kids so we have to start developing the ability to take those 24 hours, enjoy it, and start from scratch again on Monday.
“They’ve [Western Province] got a Springbok in their captain, they had [Steven] Kitshoff who is making a comeback.
“When Kitshoff was finishing matric, our tighthead [RF Schoeman] was four years old.
“What I am trying to say is that he is trying to get past that, and again learning and while he wasn’t getting ascendancy on Kitshoff, we were able to withstand the contest for long periods,” the coach said.
Reflecting on the game against Western Province, Nkosi said it was a game of two halves.
“It was probably a game of two contrasting halves.
“I thought we were almost faultless in the first half and then in the second half we sort of just didn’t really take the game to them again.
“We conceded a couple of penalties and couldn’t get into a couple of phases.
“In contrast to the first half, we were good, raised the tempo, and were able to challenge them coming to altitude.
“From an internal perspective, it’s about being critical.”
Next week the Lions travel to Bloemfontein to face the Cheetahs, a team on their heels in the standings.
“We’ve got to back ourselves and we have to make a charge for a play-off berth so we’ve got to do more of what is good for us.
“Being critical in terms of the things we have to sort out.”
