Lions’ poor run doesn’t mean they’re playing badly, says Swys de Bruin

Given the high standards they’ve set over the past three years, the Lions’ current tour to Australasia is close to being labelled a failure.

Indeed, a loss against the Highlanders in Dunedin on Saturday will leave the men from Ellis Park with a lowly tour record of one win from four.

But coach Swys de Bruin insists negative results doesn’t mean his charges are playing poorly.

“To say things have gone wrong in the past few weeks is a bit of a relative term,” he said.

“If you take last week’s game against the Hurricanes, you’d realise we did a lot better against them than ever before. We certainly scored our most points against them in Wellington.

“We even could’ve pushed for a bonus point at the end. Wellington is arguably the most difficult place in the competition to go and play in.”

As a result, he’s shown faith in his backline and made no changes, reserving the switches for the forwards, who are in need of some rotation he believes.

“It’s really not immediately apparent that we’re not playing well,” said De Bruin.

“Sometimes you play well and you’re rewarded with a win. On other occasions, you play well but lose. Except for a really poor first 40 minutes against the Reds, we’ve absolutely maintained our standards.”

The Lions will hope that faith translates into a rare South African victory in Dunedin’s “glass house” – the Forsyth Barr Stadium.

In fact, De Bruin believes a win will salvage the tour.

“If we can claim a victory, we will definitely look back on a successful trip.”

Lions: Andries Coetzee, Ruan Combrinck, Lionel Mapoe, Harold Vorster, Aphiwe Dyantyi, Elton Jantjies, Nic Groom, Kwagga Smith, Franco Mostert (c), Cyle Brink, Marvin Orie, Andries Ferreira, Johannes Jonker, Robbie Coetzee, Dylan Smith. Bench: Jacques van Rooyen, Ruan Dreyer, Jacobie Adriaanse, Lourens Erasmus, Marnus Schoeman, Dillon Smit, Rohan Janse van Rensburg, Sylvian Mahuza.