Lions ‘do have a chance’ – What the pundits say
Our experts don't believe the doom and gloom of other observers regarding Saturday's Super Rugby final but Swys de Bruin's men will have to be top notch.
Thando Manana. Photo: Photograph: Nicolise Harding/Pan Macmillan SA
While most pundits agree that the Lions do have a chance of beating the Crusaders in the Super Rugby final in Christchurch on Saturday, the general consensus is that it is a slim one.
According to our experts, the Lions have to come up with a game plan that rattles the defending champions sufficiently to knock them off the well-worn path to success they enjoy at home.
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Apart from heroic defence and physicality, that also includes being ruthless and bringing something different to the party.
Mark Andrews (former Springbok lock & 1995 World Cup winner)
The Lions can absolutely win, even if no side has worked out yet how to beat the Crusaders in a playoff game in Christchurch!
The only way the Lions can win is by scoring points quickly and then staying in the Crusaders’ faces the whole time.
As soon as you give the Crusaders space and take the pressure off them, then they are able to create because of the time and space they have.
They also play for 80 minutes and they take their opportunities for the full 80 minutes as well. They keep hammering away, they like to take the ball to you, keeping it in front of their forwards, ball-in-hand, and they can also use the kicking game to do that. They like to move the ball around and force you into making tackles.
So the Lions must keep the ball, counter-ruck, try and force turnovers and upset them at the breakdown.
Thando Manana (former Springbok loose forward & rugby pundit)
It is possible for the Lions to win, but they lost to all four New Zealand sides they played this year, although the points margins were very close in a couple of them.
I think they can take a lot though from Round Seven when they lost 8-14 to the Crusaders, two tries to one, with the core of the sides predominantly there.
The Lions need to up their tempo on defence, where they’ve been very poor at times, they’ve leaked so many tries.
But their first phase, lineouts and scrums, are good and if they can double their physicality – and with Brink, Marx, Kwagga and Whiteley they have enough firepower – then they can trouble the Crusaders.
And then if the Lions backline shows up on the day, anything’s possible.
But the backs have a lot working on their minds – we know Lionel Mapoe’s potential but he still has to fully deliver, there’s pressure on Elton Jantjies because it’s the last game before the announcement of the Rugby Championship squad, Ross Cronje was a Springbok a year ago but now he’s in the wilderness. Hopefully this will motivate them.
The selection of Courtnall Skosan suggests the Lions will be more defensive than attacking, which could be their downfall.
But the forwards will have no problem and the Lions have played in three successive finals, they can look at what went wrong and they can take a lot out of those, especially the one against the Hurricanes.
They should approach the game as four quarters and if they can up the tempo towards the end, then they can make it very exciting.
Gary Gold (former Sharks coach and Springboks assistant coach)
The Lions can definitely win, there’s no question of a doubt about it.
In the last two years they’ve been in finals, so they would have learnt lessons from that and as a team they enjoy a huge amount of continuity.
The difficulty for them is the quality of the opposition they are up against and in reality it’s going to be incredibly difficult to win in Christchurch.
I was surprised, a bit taken aback in fact, by how strong the Crusaders defence was against the Hurricanes, who are a very useful attacking team, as are the Lions.
The Lions will need to make a slight adjustment to the way they play, to their mentality around their style of play.
This weekend they need to be unbelievably ruthless in terms of playing in the right areas; if they play too much in their own areas with Matt Todd and Kieran Read lurking then they will be in trouble.
It’s not so much changing the way they play but where they play from. It is a final, it’s not impossible, but all that matters is for them to win.
But the Lions must go in believing they can win, the Crusaders, after all, came all the way to Johannesburg last year and won.
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