One-point loss heartbreaking says Van Rooyen

NEWS: The Lions arrived in Treviso, Italy in the early hours of Sunday morning after travelling through the night following their 15-16 loss to Edinburgh in the United Rugby Championship on Saturday.

The men from Johannesburg face Benetton on Sunday.

Van Rooyen said he was heartbroken for the team after the loss as they had put their bodies on the line in a tough physical battle.

"Quite heartbroken from my side, the players worked really hard and put their bodies on the line. I think our physicality was decent. Everything was good enough to get the win, we just didn't," the coach said out of Italy on Sunday afternoon.

"We've been travelling since three o'clock this morning and we just arrived in Italy. It is important for us to recover well, there are a few bumps and bruises after the physical battle but luckily nothing serious to report injury wise.

"We are disappointed with the one-point loss.

"We felt we did enough and dominated in enough areas to walk away with a win.

"I think our set-piece was good, probably could have got a little bit more reward there. Unfortunately we didn't. Edinburgh did well to capitalise on one or two slip-ups and score from that."

He was happy with the defence but contended that the Lions made two vital slip-ups.

"Generally I think our defence was good, apart from the two slip-ups. On attack we managed to get quite a few 22 metre entries, but were a couple of turn-overs there.

"And when you work hard to get ten or fifteen metres from the try-line and you turn the ball over, you don't get enough scoring opportunities.

"We also had a try cancelled. You always know an away game is going to be tight against a lot of international players. We felt we did enough to get the win but unfortunately we didn't.