Lions vice-captain Jaco Kriel admits they were not up to scratch in defeat to the Bulls

Lions flanker and vice-captain Jaco Kriel admitted after their 34-10 United Rugby Championship (URC) defeat to the Bulls on Saturday that they were just not good enough.

In what was their second loss in succession, they were outscored by four to one tries in the Jukskei derby at Ellis Park by the Bulls, who are slowly moving away from the bottom half of the table.

The Bulls tries were scored by Johan Grobbelaar, Ebrose Papier, Arno Botha and Harold Voster and veteran flyhalf Morné Steyn kicked 14 points from four conversions and two penalties.

For the home side, their only try was scored by Kriel and they were let down by experienced flyhalf Fred Zeilinga who missed two good penalties that could have given respectability to the scoreboard.

“Our focus the whole week for preparation was the breakdown because we know they are hard on the ball with guys like Johan Grobbelaar and Arno Botha are hard on the ball,” said Kriel.

“The other focus of our preparation was body height and getting early but the intent wasn’t there from the boys because we didn’t execute what we planned during the week.

“Breakdown was one of the things that we didn’t do well, our body height was bad, our reaction was bad and we weren’t good enough. When we had opportunities in the Bulls half, we just gave the ball away and we let them off.”

Lions coach Ivan van Rooyen agreed with Kriel that they did not have a good outing.

“The disappointing thing is that they didn’t do anything that we didn’t plan for. We knew how they were coming here to play and Jaco (Kriel) can vouch for me because we were pretty accurate on that one.

“It is just the ability from us in the moment to stick to the plan, to stick to what we wanted to do and put the pressure on them instead of adding the pressure on ourselves,” said Van Rooyen.

On the other hand, Bulls coach Jake White was happy with the manner in which his players performed.

“I think we played quite well in the beginning of the match because we ran very well and I don’t think they expected us to run from our own half from the beginning of the game.

“They expected us to keep the ball and play territory. The managed to find the balance between playing from own half and at times kicking to turn them around, especially at the back end of the game.

“To be fair to them, it was hard because they lost Jaco Visagie during the week which meant that their line-out was always going to be under pressure. We didn’t mind going into the line-out contest because when you change a hooker and a lock it has a domino effect on your set piece.”

The Bulls recovered from a disappointing defeat to the Stormers.

“After the Stormers game, we trained differently to be fair. We trained with a bit more urgency, focus and we were a little bit quicker because we want to play quickly.”