‘Lions need to start winning SA derbies,’ says skipper Horn

The Lions are gearing up for a must-win game against the Stormers when the two sides collide in their United Rugby Championship (URC) encounter at Ellis Park on Saturday afternoon.

Both teams are languishing in the bottom half of the table, the Stormers in 10^th and the Lions 13^th, so both are desperate for a win to make a move up the table and so that they can reach their goals for the season.

The Stormers will be fired up for the match after they just came up short, going down to the Bulls 33-32 in Cape Town over the past weekend, while the Lions also lost to the Bulls in their last game a few weeks ago, going down 35-22 at home, and will want to respond.

“If you look at the Stormers they can feel a bit hard done by, with a missed kick at the end, and they really fought hard in that game (against the Bulls) for the win,” said Lions captain Francke Horn on Tuesday.

“We have been honest about it in our build up to the Stormers. We can’t hide behind the fact that we need to start winning South African derbies, and these next four weeks, starting this weekend, is going to set us up for where we want to end.

“So we are not going to focus on the win, even though we need it, but rather on the process on how to get the end result is more important than looking too far ahead.”

Top four ambitions

Although the Lions are in a dangerous position as they find themselves well outside the top eight — where they need to be in to make the URC playoffs — they do have two games in hand on most teams around them, and Horn believes they still have what it takes to reach their top-four goal.

“We still have two games in hand. So if you look at the log it is quite bunched (up). There are a lot of teams within five points of each other and we are never going to shy away from our goals. We said top four I think it is still reachable,” admitted Horn.

“But like I said the next four weeks is going to be crucial in terms of winning SA derbies. We know it comes with a certain responsibility and a certain amount of physicality.

“You saw this (past) weekend that it is always close. Sometimes it comes down to one kick or one point. So we have to get our processes right and we have to get a result on our side to build some momentum for the coming games.”