Lions coach Ivan van Rooyen believes his facet have come proper at a good time to problem Ulster.
The Lions are hoping their first win of the season, towards Scarlets over the weekend, will give them sufficient confidence and momentum to presumably upset Irish giants Ulster in their United Rugby Championship (URC) conflict at Kingspan Stadium in Belfast on Friday night time.
Having misplaced their opening three matches by tight margins, the Lions overturned that poor begin with a decent win of their very own, beating their Scottish hosts 24-23 to interrupt their duck on the fourth time of asking.
However, they now face a frightening problem to complete their European tour on a excessive towards in-form Ulster who’ve misplaced solely as soon as up to now this season, by two factors away towards Connacht, and head into the match off a powerful 21-14 win over defending champs Munster.
Lions coach Ivan van Rooyen is aware of they’re in for an uphill battle, however he believes his facet have come proper on the good time to offer Ulster a correct problem.
“Any win is good, especially away from home in tough European conditions, it is even better,” Van Rooyen stated after their victory over Scarlets.
“We know it is going to be tough at Ulster but there has almost been a momentum shift, and the positive talk and energy is already different. We will get a bit of confidence out of this but it’s an important week (for us) to prep well.”
Tight defeats
The Lions’ three losses this season got here towards the Stormers by two factors, towards Edinburgh by one level and towards Benetton by 5 factors, displaying that they had been properly in the struggle on every event, and so they lastly managed to recover from the road towards Scarlets.
If they’ll take the sport all the way down to the wire towards Ulster as properly, they’ll know precisely what they should do to get the win.
“That is the difference in a competition like this. It is small margins. Luckily (against Scarlets) it was on our side. Last week (against Benetton) it wasn’t but we gave ourselves an opportunity. We got stuck in there every time we conceded points, we applied pressure back onto them,” stated Van Rooyen.
One of the choice selections that paid off towards Scarlets was shifting common scrumhalf Sanele Nohamba to flyhalf for the sport. He responded with a man-of-the-match efficiency and it is going to be fascinating to see if he retains his place at 10 or if he’ll shift again to 9 for Jordan Hendrikse.
“After winning you will always say you are glad it worked out. Between Morne (van den Bergh) and Sanele, they offered us something a bit different, kicking game and attack-wise,” Van Rooyen defined on the Nohamba resolution.
“We will reassess for Ulster. Sanele is a quality player. He is a great rugby player and the more times we get the ball in his hands, the more decisions he can make, which is good.”
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