Emirates Lions' head coach Ivan van Rooyen said he could not find fault with the red card shown to lock Ruben Schoeman after only twenty minutes of play in the first half, however, he said their discipline as a team is usually good.
Reduced to fourteen players following the red card, the Lions conceded three unanswered tries in the first half.
"Our discipline as a team is usually good, however, I can’t really argue about the picture of Schoeman’s red card. I think if he wrapped it with his arm there wouldn’t be too much wrong."
"The initial contact was probably not on the head but the reverse angle of his shoulder didn’t look great."
"However intent-wise I don’t think it was to hurt the player…you see where his head is, so there was no malice in what he tried to do."
Replacement, Mannie Ras' yellow card after six minutes in the second half reduced the Lions to thirteen men for ten minutes and resulted to a try by Leolin Zas a minute later, cancelling a great try by Edwill van der Merwe scored three minutes earlier.
“With Rass, he was a left hand away from catching the ball. I don’t think he attended to knock the ball down.”
Van Rooyen admitted that ill-discipline and silly errors made it difficult to gain momentum.
"The first time we scored we got called back. The croc-roll, and then we went forward and the Stormers scored from that penalty. Then there were the red card and the yellow card."
"There were probably like six to eight significant moments which made it difficult."
"The team showed great character, but that doesn’t win you rugby games."
"Hats off to the guys on the field for coming up with creative ways to get the ball over the advantage line."
"One or two line-out opportunities missed in the 22 and also a couple of breakdown turnovers. So it’s not just one thing, it the ability to get there and then covert, but some big plays from the Stormers also made it tough."