Cape Town — Western Province’s coaching staff will be smiling after their team showed similar traits to the Stormers in their convincing 44-28 over the Lions at Ellis Park in the Currie Cup on Saturday.
A massive defensive display when they were under the pump, in tandem with some brilliant touches on attack, allowed the Cape side to win with a bonus point in their tournament opener.
They scored five tries and kept the Lions at bay with solid tackles when the home team kept hammering on the door, looking for a way back into the game.
Province led 34-14 at halftime and were cruising at one stage, before the Lions valiantly fought back to score four tries.
Despite this it was a convincing Province victory against a strong Lions side that should’ve fronted up better, especially in the scrums and when stopping WP’s rolling mauls.
The goal for WP coach John Dobson and his team is not just success in South Africa’s premier domestic competition, but also to develop players who can seamlessly slot into the United Rugby Championship and Champions Cup with the Stormers.
"What I really like is probably the similar traits as what you see in the Stormers team, the way we defended after halftime and worked for each other. I'm very pleased with them, full stop," Dobson said.
"A lot of guys showed that they can play URC, it wasn't easy out there. Ruan Smith and Sti Sithole are experienced props and to have Kwenzo (Blose), Lee-Marvin (Mazibuko), Sazi (Sandi) and Leon Lyons go like that, was very pleasing.
"Next week we'll probably have a very pretty strong Bulls group. But this is the value of the competition for us. A lot of guys showed that they can play URC games."
Although his team scored five brilliant tries, three off rumbling rolling mauls and two thanks to the good interplay between the backs and forwards, Dobson feels there are some things to improve on.
He highlighted their discipline as an area to sharpen up.
“But it was so nice to see the DNA that was stamped on the Stormers team, on this team as well,” Dobson said.
Lions coach Mziwakhe Nkosi says his team lost the arm-wrestle competition, with WP looking at the rolling maul that the visitors utilised with success to get the upper hand.
"Our discipline allowed them to get into our 22-metre area with the penalty count in the first half seven-two (against us)," Nkosi said.
"It's disappointing, especially the scrum penalties we conceded. I think we had an experienced front row and the penalties let us down. Some (penalties) were quite harsh like our wings on the edge who had full rights to the ball.
"But that's how it was adjudicated and that's the message we have to send out to our guys. We have to show a bit more maturity from a discipline point of view."
Nkosi added that it was difficult for them to build momentum especially when they made so many errors. But he was happy with how some of his guys played in the match, pushing for higher honours in the URC team.
“A number of players put up their hands. Darrien Landsberg ran the lineouts magnificently, (scrumhalf) Nico Steyn when he came on was exceptional. Tyler Bocks got us over the gain line successfully,” Nkosi said.
Nkosi says they will have to wait for the URC team to see who will be available for the next Currie Cup match. He is hoping to keep some sort of continuity for their next game against the Pumas.
IOL Sport