Ivan van Rooyen proud of Lions fight in Leinster loss

The Lions were hunting a first-ever away win over the United Rugby Championship title-holders in Dublin on Saturday. The men from Johannesburg were well in the match at 14-7 heading into the final quarter. But Leinster finally showed their quality, punishing the visitors' mistakes with three quick tries to take the score out to an unflattering 31-7.

"We showed some great character to fight back.

"Around the 68th minute, there were three sequences where I felt we had a few tough calls against us with the score being at 14-7.

"We could’ve won a couple of penalties and earned some territory, but unfortunately, we made three defensive errors, which led to three tries.

"So up to the 68th minute, I felt that we had swung the momentum back into our favour with an opportunity for us to do something special against Leinster.

"Unfortunately, in those 10 minutes, we conceded those three tries, which throws the scoreline a bit off, but we had to be better. If you make three defensive errors against a quality Leinster team away, they will punish you."

The loss leaves the Lions in fifth on the URC table, but mathematically, they are yet to cement their place in the playoffs.

They will be hoping for the Stormers and Edinburgh to do them a favour on Friday night by taking Cardiff and Connacht out of the multi-faceted equation, but ultimately, van Rooyen sees Saturday's tough clash with Irish giants Munster as a must-win match.

"The big focus this week is obviously on Munster," he continued.

"We can’t leave anything to chance this week if one looks at the fixtures head-to-head on Friday evening.

"One or two games [on Friday] might show you what is needed, but from my side, we’ll see the Munster fixture as a must-win game for both teams who require the points to go through. We will keep the permutations up to us, and that’s our mindset."