The Lions will take helpful classes out of their first stint in European knockout rugby, after their Challenge Cup marketing campaign was ended on the quarterfinal stage by Glasgow Warriors in Scotland over weekend.
The Lions loved a strong marketing campaign total, successful three video games, drawing as soon as and dropping twice of their first look within the Challenge Cup.
In the pool stage they beat Dragons away and Stade Francais at residence, however they drew their residence conflict towards the Welsh outfit and misplaced their away match towards the French aspect.
Knockout clashes
This put them third on the log, which gave them a house final 16 conflict, with them placing in presumably their greatest efficiency of the season as they performed for over 60 minutes with 14 males however nonetheless managed to thump French giants Racing 92 51-28.
This set them up for an away quarterfinal towards Glasgow on the Scotstoun Stadium, and regardless of a valiant effort towards a global laden aspect, they fell simply quick with a 31-21 loss.
READ MORE: Brave Lions go down combating towards Glasgow Warriors
“The best learning experience is to be exposed to a game of this magnitude, playing a knockout away from home against a high-quality team studded with internationals. I really could see how much this experience meant to the guys,” mentioned Lions coach Ivan van Rooyen after the match.
“One area where we’ve really improved immensely over the past 6 to 8 weeks is our ability to absorb lessons quicker, fixing on the go and we’re starting to do that. That’s the difference between top-class players and others, the ability to adapt and improve during a game in specific situations.”
Losing key gamers
In the Glasgow match the Lions additionally misplaced two key gamers within the first quarter of the sport to move knocks which set them again, after a nasty collision noticed wing Rabz Maxwane stretchered off, adopted by final 16 participant of the match Ruan Venter, who had develop into a colossal determine among the many forwards.
“Rabz pace and x-factor has been a point of difference for us, similar to Edwill (van der Merwe), so losing that pure speed and pace on the turnover with kick chases and all that was a big loss,” admitted Van Rooyen.
“Ruan Venter is then our predominant ball provider in giving us momentum and tackler in stopping theirs, so to lose that early on was clearly a problem.
“But it gave an unbelievable opportunity to someone like Ruan Delport, who is 20 years old, to play that many minutes against a team like this.”
Both Maxwane and Venter are anticipated to overlook the Lions’ subsequent recreation or two as they comply with return-to-play concussion protocols, however aside from that Van Rooyen didn’t see any important accidents to his aspect forward of their huge finish of season run-in within the United Rugby Championship.
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