Lions desperate for a win

The Lions have reached a point where they are desperate for a win in the United Rugby Championship and will be hoping to get it on Saturday against Scarlets at the Parc y Scarlets (kick-off 7.15pm).

The Johannesburg-based side, which is being led by centre Marius Louw, has had to deal with heart-crushing losses in the three games they have played so far. The young Lions lost 35-33 to the Stormers in the season opener, 17-16 to Edinburgh and 15-10 to Benetton last weekend.

Ivan van Rooyen’s team have managed to pick up four bonus points that have kept them afloat on the table, however, they need to get a win to kick-start their campaign.

Getting a win against Scarlets won’t be easy as they have turned a corner after starting the season with back-to-back losses against the Bulls and Stormers, and will have confidence heading into the clash after defeating Cardiff 31-25.

Not sure what to expect

Lions assistant coach Julian Redelinghuys is not sure which Scarlets side will turn up against them.

“They have played three games so far this season, they had a tour tough of South Africa and played Cardiff back at home, and we saw two different teams … same personnel but they played totally differently,” said Redelinghuys ahead of the match.

“They are playing home this weekend; I think the difficult thing here is, depending on the weather teams change their strategy. We can’t focus on that we just have to focus on what we have to do. All focus after the first three games has to be on ourselves.

“We obviously have to look at the opposition and get a strategy around them, but our main focus is sorting the things we can do better internally, and hopefully it can translate on the field,” he said.

Redelinghuys, who is in charge of the Lions scrum, is hoping his team can be dominant in that aspect of the game and the physicality contest.

“As South Africans we do pride ourselves come scrum time, maul time and physicality time. It won’t be different to any other game, but it’s an area we’ll look to assert our dominance,” said the former Springbok prop.