Lions fired up for second run at the Bulls in URC cross-Jukskei derby

The Lions are ready for a second crack at the Bulls when they welcome their Highveld rivals to Ellis Park for their United Rugby Championship (URC) derby on Saturday afternoon.

The two sides battled out a thrilling encounter at Loftus just a few weeks ago, with the Pretoria side emerging victorious 30-28, and both teams have had a two-week break before heading into this weekend’s clash.

The Lions just missed out on picking up back-to-back wins at Loftus, with a long-range penalty from Jordan Hendrikse after the fulltime hooter just sailing wide, and the heartbreak of that defeat has been fuelling the team ahead of the return clash, according to prop Asenathi Ntlabakanye.

“Straight after that game if you asked most of the guys I am sure they would have wanted to play the Bulls the following weekend. We were really gutted with the result,” explained Ntlabakanye.

“So we have really been looking forward to this game, playing the Bulls back-to-back. It is an opportunity for us as a team to really test ourselves. And playing at Ellis Park in front of our home crowd, we really want to produce a good performance.”

Strong set piece

In the previous match the Lions enjoyed a strong performance at the set pieces. They were on top in the scrums, while their lineouts were decent as well, but Ntlabakanye believes they can still improve and be better against the Bulls this weekend.

“There is always stuff to look at after a game. We were quite happy but not fully satisfied with our set piece performance. For our standards it was a bit of an average performance,” he said.

“So there are a few things we need to work on, especially in the scrums. When you have a team like the Bulls under pressure you need to keep them there, but there were a few times when we let them out of the pressure situation.

“So as a forward pack that’s something we have been focusing on over the past two weeks and going into this game.”