Lions head coach Ivan van Rooyen and skipper Marius Louw praised the execution and freedom of the team on attack in a nine-try mauling of Zebre Parma on Saturday.
Henco van Wyk and Edwill van der Merwe scored two tries apiece as the Lions eased to a 61-19 bonus-point win at Ellis Park in round 6 of the Vodacom URC.
Richard Kriel, Francke Horn, Quan Horn, Morne van den Berg and Emmanuel Tshituka were also on the scoresheet as The Pride emphatically claimed a second win of the season, while Sanele Nohamba slotted 14 points.
Following four weeks on the road in Europe, which yielded one win from four matches, the Lions bared their claws on home turf and speaking post-match, Van Rooyen told reporters: “The irony is we felt we played well enough in all five, make it six now, games, just small moments – small momentum swings – at the wrong times.
“It’s been a tough week in terms of travel, coming back to 35 degrees, and seeing a performance like that makes you proud.
“The performances have been good enough to get points early on (this season), unfortunately we weren’t able to. But I think the last two, three games it’s a lot better from us in terms of constant pressure, but also converting that into points.
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“It has been a work-on and instead of chasing your tail for the last 20, 30 minutes it was nice being on the other side.”
On the creative flair of his teammates, Louw added: “It’s not something new, we’ve always had that freedom, it’s just about expressing that at the right times. Obviously once you execute you build confidence and are able to do it more and more.
“We’re a good team when we stick to our processes and we did that well today, and within that comes the freedom.”
The Lions will now turn their attention to facing the Dragons on Saturday before they launch their second campaign in the Challenge Cup.
“On Thursday and Friday we as coaches spent a lot of time looking ahead to Dragons, a tough team,” Van Rooyen said. “They keep on fighting, a good kicking game, a good, solid set piece.
“So the focus from us will be to keep on building momentum and keep on working on consistency, whether it’s execution or pressure or mentally just being able to replicate [a similar performance].”
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