REACTION: Western Province Currie Cup assistant coach Dawie Snyman praised the influence of the experienced players in his side that went down to the Lions by 22-41 at Ellis Park on Saturday.
It was a disappointing result for the Cape Town based side who failed to take a single log point from their trip to Johannesburg, being outplayed in all facets of the game.
Assistant coach Dawie Snyman gave credit to the Lions but also lamented his side’s errors that the Lions capitalised on.
“I think the Lions were good today, it’s never easy coming here to Ellis Park,” said Snyman.
“I think we made 3/4 errors in that first-half that took the game away and obviously starting again the second-half we lost the lineout and they went and got points from that, those mistakes are costly up here.”
Snyman also pointed to ‘one or two individual mistakes’ that made life difficult for his side but also felt that they could have been better had they had more possession.
“I thought when we had the ball we looked like we were putting the Lions a little bit under pressure, we didn’t have enough of that and second-half almost the same story, there is probably one or two individual mistakes on our side and that was the story.”
With old heads such as Steven Kitshoff, Scarra Ntubeni and Dewald Duvenage – Western Province were not short on experience in those respective players’ positions and Snyman praised them for their influence in what is a very young squad.
“It’s great to have those guys around,” said Snyman
“You can see the youngsters are talking to them and learning from them and it’s good for them also to be experiencing those players in a match situation like today when it’s not actually going your way and how they conduct themselves and how they communicate with each other.”
Western Province are currently languishing in sixth place on the Currie Cup table with 14 points – seven points behind the Sharks who they’ll meet in their next clash at Cape Town Stadium.
Snyman hinted at changes that could be made for that clash, with some players from the Stormers’ URC squad possibly getting a run to prepare for the upcoming URC season.
“We’re back at home, it’s still part of the process for us preparing some of the players to get ready for the URC so I think we’ll make a few changes and get a few guys more game time.
He added: “Some good things that we can take out of tonight [Saturday], we’ll probably focus on that more and one or two individual errors we’ll address.”
