Rugby

Lions end year on a high after tough start to season

Their newest victory was a implausible means for the Lions to shut out 2023 after that they had a tough start to the season.

The Lions ended their year on a high with a fourth straight win, and second in a row within the Challenge Cup, once they beat English Premiership membership Newcastle Falcons 35-13 at Ellis Park on Saturday.

It was a implausible means to end their rugby for the year after that they had a tough start to the season that noticed them with one win of their opening 5 video games within the United Rugby Championship (URC), which included a tough four-game European tour.

Since then, nonetheless, the Lions have thumped Zebre 61-21 and Dragons 49-24 within the URC at residence, after which loved a nice start to their Challenge Cup marketing campaign with a 28-12 win over USA Perpignan adopted by final week’s win over the Falcons.

Although they went into the sport on the weekend in prime type and had been favourites, the Lions had been pushed onerous by their English guests and had to dig deep via their forwards to safe the optimistic bonus-point outcome within the end.

“We did say we wanted to come out here with a fast start and get them breathing a bit. So it was a slow start from us but we managed to get it together and come away with the result at the end,” mentioned man-of-the-match Darrien Landsberg.

“I feel [the wet and cool conditions] helped them a bit. We had been anticipating it to be hotter than it was however we managed to pull it collectively and get the outcome that we wished.

“We did say in the week that we wanted to take them up front first and the rest would handle itself, so I think we did a great job. Credit to the whole pack in the lineouts and in the scrums. I think we did a phenomenal job today.”

Time off

The Lions now have a couple of weeks off earlier than resuming their URC marketing campaign towards the Sharks in Durban over the primary weekend of January, following which they are going to take on Montpellier in France and host Ospreys within the subsequent two rounds of the Challenge Cup.

Captain Marius Louw has been pleased with the expansion of the workforce over the season up to now and believes that they’ll proceed getting higher over the remainder of the marketing campaign once they resume enjoying in January.

“We are a team that is process driven, so we focus on what we need to do every week, and that will require a lot of different things from us,” Louw mentioned.

“I feel we’ve got grown a lot (this season) and our time of studying has been quick. It is nearly executing our plan and that’s the place it was a little bit disappointing for me (towards the Falcons).

“But looking forward it will obviously be a good thing for us to keep on winning. That’s the main objective for us, and hopefully we can get a home quarterfinal (in the Challenge Cup). That would be awesome for us.”


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