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Good win, but now Lions must build on this

rugby27 October 2025 05:55
By:Brenden Nel
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Ivan van Rooyen© Gallo Images

A good win, now they must build on it. That’s the message from Lions coach Ivan van Rooyen after his side’s second half blowout to send Irish side Ulster packing with a massive win at Ellis Park during their Vodacom United Rugby Championship match on Saturday.

The Lions scored 35 points in the second half to cruise to a 49-31 win over Ulster in a high-scoring game, backing up their win over the Scarlets and now looking ahead to a month’s break before they face the Bulls in a cross-Jukskei derby.

While Ulster faded badly in the last 20 minutes and the Lions scored four tries in this period, the die was cast during the first hour when the pace of the game was inevitably going to catch up to the visitors.

But that doesn’t undermine the result for the Lions, where the five valuable points were met with a sigh of relief after losses in their three opening games put pressure on the coaching side.

“We knew we had to lift our game because Ulster had beaten two good South African teams in the Bulls and Sharks, home and away,” Van Rooyen said afterwards.

“They showed their class in those games, so for us to get five points, we are happy with that. But I’m more proud of the hard work we put in and how we did it. We can really build on this.

“The guys really played hard and put in a lot of effort. The 2pm kick-off was as tough for us as it was for them. I think as the game progressed we got more efficient and our error rate went down.

“Our exits still put us under a bit of pressure, but we challenged the guys this week (to put in a big performance) and they responded.”

The second half, after going into the break 19-14 down, was the big difference as they upped the tempo in the last quarter and Ulster couldn’t compete.

“We were creating the right pictures in that first half. We had unbelievable sets on both defence and attack. If you look at the work that we did in that final defensive set before halftime, and it was inches in the corner, otherwise we could have prevented the try,” Van Rooyen said of Robert Balloucoune’s hat-trick effort on the stroke of halftime.

“That shows how hard we are working. So at halftime, we were quite technical in our talk. We were creating the right pictures, and we needed just one or two changes. We knew we could put them under pressure if we were a little more accurate.”

The Lions will now enjoy the time off before facing the Bulls in what will be a massive derby.

 

 

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