‘Lions desperate for growth, consistency over 80 minutes’

The Lions face an important match-up against the Stormers at Ellis Park on Saturday, as they look to continue growing and improving in the United Rugby Championship.

The Lions have struggled over the past three weeks of local derbies and are still looking to produce that consistent 80 minute performance, which they are hoping to achieve this weekend.

“This is an important game for us, we are desperate for continuous growth. We want those small disciplines to come through in the game to get that consistency for 80 minutes,” explained Lions coach Ivan van Rooyen.

“So we are fully focussed on this game and just sticking to our processes. Our growth has been awesome but our consistency is not there yet. We are not going to get too personal or focus too much on something that is going to deviate from the process.

“To be honest we haven’t been great at home in the last two games, so we are really looking to step it up against the Stormers.”

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This is the second match in the competition between the two sides, with the Lions emerging victorious in Cape Town in December after a rousing performance saw them stun the Stormers at their home ground.

However both sides fortunes have changed since then with the Lions losing three matches and the Stormers going unbeaten over three, so it should be a different encounter this time round.

“I think their form is completely different, they’ve got some key players back that obviously make a big difference for them and they have really performed well in the last three games against South African teams,” said Van Rooyen.

“For us we took some lessons from that game (Stormers win) and the stuff we have been doing well (over the past few weeks) we will continue. But this game is a new focus for us and we have a new game plan.

“We know that they are arriving with confidence, so the more we focus on us and what we want to do and how we can apply pressure to them I think it will be better for us.”