Upbeat Lions now shift focus to Unlocked form team, the Bulls

Despite gaining a good deal of confidence from their first win in the Super Rugby Unlocked series, the Lions are  already bracing themselves for a far bigger challenge.

The Joburg side will welcome cross-Jukskei rivals, the Bulls, to Ellis Park this week.

The Pretoria-based team were in a destructive mood against a pedestrian Stormers side at the weekend, but the Lions also showed glimpses of what they themselves are capable of with a 61-31 demolition of Griquas on home turf.

After getting a big monkey off their backs by moving into the winning column, Lions coach Cash van Rooyen admitted that his team’s forward pack would have to play a central role in the clash of the two old foes.

“We know the Bulls have a really good pack,” Van Rooyen said, looking ahead to the match against the competition’s in-form team.

“But, we first have to look at what we can take out of this game (against Griquas) and how we can then fix the weaker elements against the Bulls,” he added.

The Lions head coach, however, believed his own forwards did very well against the men from Kimberley; their scrums and lineouts were on par and they enjoyed a fair amount of dominance in those set-plays.

Van Rooyen added that without having done too much tailed analysis, he had determined that the areas that demanded extra attention were consistency, decision-making, and more clinical execution.

Captain Elton Jantjies had one of his best games, despite one of his trademark kick-passes falling favourably for Griquas fullback James Verity-Amm to score a try against the run of play.

Jantjies said, however, he preferred to look at the positives, despite the Griquas purple patch in the second half when they scored four tries.

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