DHL Western Province coach John Dobson knows that his team will have to dig deep to bounce back from their disappointing defeat to the Xerox Golden Lions.

DHL Western Province coach John Dobson knows that his team will have to dig deep to bounce back from their disappointing defeat to the Xerox Golden Lions.

In what was a replay of last year’s Currie Cup Final, the defending champions ran in eight tries in a convincing 58-32 victory at Emirates Airline Park on Friday.

Dobson lamented his team’s poor defence, which was ruthlessly exploited by the home team.

“Defensively we were atrocious, you can’t give away three or four 90 metre tries.

“We were too tight, we slipped too many tackles, we didn’t work hard enough.

“I didn’t expect us to defend like that, we had some plans and we didn’t execute them,” he said.

The DHL Western Province coach paid tribute to the Xerox Golden Lions, who made the most of the opportunities they were given.

“Credit to the Lions, they played a magical style of rugby and exploited our defensive frailties,” he said.

Dobson admitted that qualifying for the semifinals is going to be a big challenge, and has set his sights on three bonus point wins in their remaining league fixtures against the Steval Pumas, Griquas and Boland.

“It is going to be tough now, we need a couple of results to go our way, and for us to get full points in every game.

“We didn’t expect this, we are probably a better team than this, but we were well beaten.

“We are up against it now, the Lions will get a lot of confidence from this and we are in a tough situation,” he said.

The only consolation for Dobson was the way his team fought to earn their four-try bonus point which came right at the end of the game.

“The one thing I will give my team some credit for is when the message went on that we had to get two more tries for the bonus point we got those, that was important to us,” he added.