Swys de Bruin: Only Facebook makes you bad overnight

Lions coach Swys de Bruin isn’t lying awake at night wondering what might’ve been in 2018’s Super Rugby campaign.

It might be tempting to do so given that the men from Ellis Park are now relying on the Brumbies to beat the Waratahs in Sydney for them to have a chance of finishing second on the overall log.

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How it’s come to this isn’t difficult to pinpoint – they’ve thrown at least four victories this year.

But De Bruin is taking comfort from the fact that it happens to all good teams and athletes, from Roger Federer to the German football team.

“It’s not something we’re purposely doing wrong. It’s sport, simple as that,” said the Lions’ mentor on Thursday ahead of Saturday’s derby with the Bulls at home.

The Lions need to win the match to secure at least a home quarterfinal.

“Roger Federer is a star and he just lost on Wednesday. The Croatians have beaten the odds to reach the World Cup final at the expense of England. Roger and England haven’t suddenly become poor.

“We haven’t either. When you lose, you don’t suddenly become a bad team. On Facebook you’re suddenly bad. You’re terrible and the coach and the captain need to be fired but in the real world, you just take it on the chin and move on.”

The Lions acknowledge that they’ve squandered good opportunities to put teams away during games but De Bruin also pointed out that inconsistent results have been the name of the game this year.

In fact, it’s probably the dominant theme of Super Rugby 2018.

“We haven’t always capitalised, that’s true. But every team, except maybe the Crusaders, will tell you that they should’ve won a few games that they didn’t,” said De Bruin.

“Everyone knew from the word go that there wouldn’t be easy games this season. Every team this year has had this problem of inconsistency. They all say: We could’ve done that, we should’ve done that.”

Lions: Andries Coetzee, Ruan Combrinck, Lionel Mapoe, Harold Vorster, Courtnall Skosan, Elton Jantjies, Nic Groom, Warren Whiteley (c), Cyle Brink, Kwagga Smith, Franco Mostert, Marvin Orie, Ruan Dreyer, Malcolm Marx, Jacques van Rooyen. Bench: Corne Fourie, Johannes Jonker, Jacobie Adriaanse, Lourens Erasmus, Marnus Schoeman/Hacjivah Dayimani, Ross Cronje, Aphiwe Dyantyi, Howard Mnisi/Shaun Reynolds.

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