Stephen Jones, the Lions fly half, talks to www.lionsrugby.com the day after the first test in Durban.
On the game
“Obviously huge disappointment as we left ourselves a huge mountain to climb going into the last quarter, looking at the positives we created a few opportunities but we hadn’t been clinical and we didn’t take the chances until the last quarter. I thought centres played particularly well, created a lot of problems, our pattern worked and our fitness levels were good these are the areas that are good for us and we can look to take into the next game but there are areas that we need to address as well.
As the game progressed I thought we grew into the game and we managed to get the ball through our hands a bit quicker, we were more efficient in the contact area and we created more problems and I thought our energy levels were good as well.”
On the Boks
“They started very well and got a lot of points on the board early and that made life difficult for us and silenced the crowd and we didn’t get much momentum then.”
On the second half revival
“I was happy with the way that we were playing in the second half, the speed of the ball was good, we were playing with a lot of width in our game and I thought we were causing a lot of problems but it took us to get into the second half to go in 100% and we left ourselves too big a challenge.
We showed character and belief and when we do implement the game plan it works and that is our big challenge that we need to play not just for sections of the game but the whole eighty.
We are lucky, if this was a World Cup final that would be it, the tournament would be over but we fortunate that we have another opportunity this Saturday to get level in the series. We take a lot of heart from the fact that when we play we can play some good rugby and cause problems and that is how we have to go into this game. But we have to be honest with ourselves, work hard this week, address areas where we are not so clever at the moment.
We are all in the same boat (backs and forwards), the backs have to look at areas of our game where we need to be more clinical and areas that we need to address, yes from a positive we are creating the opportunities but we need to finish them off.“
