‘We deserve to be in the top 8,’ says Lions’ JC Pretorius ahead of Glasgow showdown

Lions loose forward JC Pretorius firmly believes his team deserve to be in the United Rugby Championship (URC) top eight by the end of the season and that they will be going all out to get a win over Glasgow Warriors on Saturday night to help them towards that goal.

After blowing a great chance to pick up vital away points, when they lost a game they really should have won against Cardiff last weekend, it has left the Lions 13^th on the log, and a loss against second placed Glasgow would see them lose even more ground.

It is thus a huge match for the Lions to try and pick up as many points as they can, to return to South Africa with, where they will have a four game home run to finish the pool stage of the competition.

Pretorius is well aware of the dangers if a team dwells too much on a loss and said that the players have moved past the Cardiff result and are now fully focused on the Glasgow match.

“I feel, especially in this competition, if you stumble along the road or lose a game, you can’t go back to that defeat, because you will lose sight of your next job,” said Pretorius.

“I wouldn’t say our backs are against the wall, but I know we can fight our way out of this, and we definitely deserve to be in the top eight.”

Extra prep

Having played Cardiff last week Friday, and facing Glasgow on Saturday has given the Lions an extra day to prepare for this weekend’s important match. That has allowed the players to reflect on their poor effort in Wales and where they can improve.

“To be honest the extra day of recovery was nice, and it was a day of detail as well, as it allowed us to have a deeper look into our game,” explained Pretorius.

“We have been quite strict on each other. We now know where we can be better this weekend (against Glasgow). I think they capitalised by putting our breakdown under pressure and they adapted better to the wind, which played a role in our back three (struggling) as well.

“I think everyone has had a good look at what happened in the game and at themselves as well, and I think they will definitely sharpen up (on Saturday).”

Adding to that Pretorius believes that the fight that the Lions showed against Cardiff was a positive, but that only getting one losing bonus point, instead of four for the win could prove costly.

“From a player’s perspective. You can’t let your emotions get the better of you during the game. I think we let ourselves down. Every time we entered the 22, we made errors, and they just capitalised on that,” said Pretorius.

“But one thing I can say is we fought right to the very end. Especially playing overseas, the points you are offered you have to take. So I think we let ourselves down in that aspect. But we are in a good space and training has been going very well.”