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Despite winning their first Carling Currie Cup match comfortably, DHL Western Province knows that there is some hard work to do if they are to back that up with another win against the Xerox Lions in Johannesburg on Wednesday.
Head Coach John Dobson’s team ran in seven tries in a 48-24 win against a depleted Vodacom Bulls team at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday and Dobson made it clear that they will have to raise their standards if they are to make it two wins from two up on the Highveld this week.
They will face a Xerox Lions team determined to bounce back from a defeat in Nelspruit and Dobson said that they are under no illusions about what is required of them before then.
“We were pleased with our effort generally and our set-piece, but everything will have to be better at Ellis Park. The Xerox Lions will have some players back and will be hurting from what happened in their first game.
“I don’t think our performance would be a win at Ellis Park, so we have got some work to do over the next few days,” he said.
DHL Western Province enjoyed dominance up front against a Vodacom Bulls side that was missing a full squad that had travelled to Italy to play in the PRO14 Rainbow Cup Final and Dobson said that while there were some aspects of their game which was promising, they let themselves down in certain areas such as defence.
“There were some aspects of our performance that we were quite pleased with, the set-pieces, the possession we had and some of the attack. We probably disappointed with the scoreline at the end and to concede two tries in the last five minutes after our yellow card was disappointing.
“We weren’t thrilled, in the first half especially, defensively. We only made 10 tackles in the half and we missed a few. We knew they were a team that would keep playing, so we could have defended better.
“We were seduced a little bit by our set-piece dominance into playing some pretty careless rugby at stages, we were offloading when we shouldn’t have and we could have been tighter and more accurate.
“It was always going to be a tough game for us, the Vodacom Bulls were obviously dangerous because they had nothing to lose and everyone was expecting us to win,” he explained.
There were five players who made their DHL Western Province debut, with hooker JJ Kotze scoring a remarkable four of the seven tries on the night. Dobson said that all five acquitted themselves well in their first game in the blue and white hoops.
“I’m really pleased for the debutants, they all did to a man very well. JJ Kotze is going to be a good hooker, Evan Roos stood up again. Hacjivah Dayimani showed what he can do in his 23 minutes. Likewise Niel Otto and Justin Basson,” he added.
The DHL Western Province team to face the Xerox Lions at Emirates Airline Park in Johannesburg on Wednesday will be named on Tuesday.