Cape Town — The opening 30 minutes of the Lions' match against Benetton probably showed that the team hasn't played together for two weeks.
But that's something coach Ivan van Rooyen and his troops can fix over their next couple of matches as they look to qualify for the knockouts of the United Rugby Championship and next season's European Champions Cup.
After a slow start, the Johannesburg side scored three quickfire tries in the second half to claw their way back to a victory beating the Italian club 32-28 in Treviso.
Captain Marius Louw said after the game that they struggled to get going for some reason, but he was happy that they pulled through in the end.
"We haven't been a team that started slow in the first half and we knew we had to start fast for us to put them away," he said.
"We had a slow start and that is not us. Going in at half-time, we had a chat about picking up our intensity and backing the calls coming through."
Lions coach Ivan van Rooyen backed up his captain, saying that the slow start allowed Benetton to gain momentum. He also pointed out that his team wanted to throw the ball around far too quickly instead of keeping things simple to build their own momentum.
"We gave the ball back (to them) and we had to scramble. In those last 30 minutes, we turned things around. When we started playing more direct and simple, there was a big difference.
"That was the big message at half-time, keep it simple, keep it basic. If we can get through seven or eight phases because if the ball was turned over too early, we were punished for it."
Although his team missed a fair amount of first-time tackles that let Benetton through, their scrambling defence was outstanding and it kept the home side from scoring more tries in the first half.
This aspect of their game delighted Van Rooyen, although he felt they could've been better defensively.
"Benetton is a tough team so if you sit on the (defence) line, they have good carries. They run late angles that can expose you. They managed to do that a couple of times, luckily they did not score five or six tries.
"We managed to fix things in the second half and I'm ecstatic about that."
IOL Sport