Lions stay grounded with honest chats, says Van Rooyen

2026-03-24 - 12:01

The Lions are on the up and look to be in the best position to secure a place in the United Rugby Championship (URC) top eight for the first time ever, but have to keep their feet firmly on the ground with five pool matches still to go. They currently find themselves in a very weird position, in seventh place on the URC log on 38 points, four points off Ulster up in third, but also three ahead of Connacht in ninth place. That means that on just one weekend, depending if results go their way or not, they could rise up into the competition’s top four, or fall out of the top eight, turning their end of season run into a massive scrap once again. Key for the Lions is their next three home matches, against Dragons this coming Saturday and then Glasgow Warriors and Connacht next month, and winning them could be the difference between them making it into the playoffs or not. They finish their pool campaign with an incredibly tough two game tour to Ireland, where they will face defending champs Leinster and fellow Irish powerhouse Munster, and they won’t want to go over their needing to win to qualify. The Lions are however in a very confident space at the moment, as they are on a three match winning run, have just celebrated winning the SA Shield, and thrashed Edinburgh 54-17 over the weekend. Heavy favourites Although they will be heavy favourites welcoming the Dragons, who sit second bottom of the log, to Ellis Park this weekend, they have to still be extremely wary, especially after the Welsh side gave the high flying Stormers a run for their money. “I think good, honest discussions,” explained Lions coach Ivan van Rooyen on how they keep themselves grounded. “We currently start the week with an honest discussion of where we are and what we need to fix, and then we move on to getting the job done in terms of preparation. “I’ll be really disappointed if we get ahead of ourselves because we haven’t shown that recently. We haven’t talked about stuff like that (URC top four), so we’ll be honest with ourselves in the mirror. “We also need to ID what’s working for us and keep on working on that and what we need to fix. Every week is a new challenge, and a new opportunity that normally goes hand in hand.” Speaking about the team’s impressive showing against Edinburgh, Van Rooyen said he was especially pleased with his side’s use of space, but also admitted they still had things to work on. “We knew Edinburgh are exceptional in holding onto the ball, but if you can somehow force a turnover, it equals an opportunity,” explained Van Rooyen. “Our lineouts were good, but I am still not happy with the consistency of our scrums. Whether their scrumming was legal or illegal is for another discussion, but we want to apply pressure in that area too. “Our identification of space is improving, so is our execution, and we will keep polishing those areas. Our work rate on defence is exceptional (as well).”