Lions versus Sunwolves

Lions battling. Lead 19-17. Lions have lost a lot of talent. t started wth the injury to Redli nghuys whereby the lost their scum dominance.

Lions are making tough work of it.

Then add in Ferreira the big lock, Ruan Ackermann, Whiteley and Kriel. Faf was a big loss at scrummie.

Are they as good ?Time will tell. If the TV given pack weight is right 8 53 looks very light.

Meanwhile the Sunwolves are outplaying them.

Wolves winger runs over players and makes the lions look like wee lambs. Where is that reprobate wee cc?

Wolves winger runs over players and makes the lions look like wee lambs. Where is that reprobate wee cc?

CC is downing his 24th Castle!

His one lonely brain cell must be staggering & spluttering.

Lions have edged ahead & may start to dominate now.

Wolves winger again makes lambs of lions with a great long run try.

Wolves playing hard and get a turnover off a rolling maul. Well done.

Wolves get an intercept try off good line speed. Wolves take the lead.

Lions get a try.

Lions win but all to lose. Concerns about Lions grow!

Lions look to have serious game management issues. Especially in the backs.

I suggest that Beeno can start applying his 'Hapless wee' tag to the Lions now, no?

M oo  loo man I think rather that the title hapless be applied to the Blues who were soundly whipped by the Mighty Stormers. at least the Lions won their match this Saturday.

At least the Blues can beat the hapless Lions eh dingus ? Even the Sunnies were a hair away from beating them .

Tell me dopey have your stormers won more super comps than the Blues ? Nah its only the Bulls that have won any eh ?

sad.

To be quite frank I think the Lions team should be given a lecture on what will happen if they do not start playing as a team and  stop their poor defensive efforts  or in some cases of their backline players even virtual absence of defense.  I do not think they will go far unless that those issues are resolved and they start playing rugby and I mean all facets of the game.   If not they will get more disgraced in every game they play.

Their performances the past two weeks  was a crime against rugby as a game - something to be ashamed about,  
 

@ Mike

You're missing the big picture by some distance here Mike.

If the Lions were to try and sort out their defense they'd be creating two problems out of one.

On the surface it seems as though your advice is solid. Though if they were to take it they'd probably play even worse.

Here's why.

The Lions, and this is without checking any stats, have had one of the worst defensive records for two years now. Everybody scores against them, and often times opposition score more points in a losing game against the Lions than they do in games they've won against other opposition.

Do you start to see why your advice is bad?

The Lions, due to the way they've been playing the last few years have allowed teams to score against them. It was not a problem because when a team scores 25 points over 80 mins, the Lions will have scored 40-50 or more. Thus appearing to comprehensively outplayed opposition in all departments. And all you read were footnotes about the defensive lapses while all the glory went to the plethora of tries.

In games this year, the points against the Lions have been on par with previous years but the Lions ability to score has diminished. 

Calling for them to focus on defense means they now need to focus on both attack and defense as opposed to just sorting their attack out, improving their game management and then relying on denying opposition any ball and scoring points while doing so.

Granted there were many occasions when low hits were called for yet failed to be made. Of course some defensive work is necessary but far and away the biggest problem is ball retention, attacking synergy and game management.  

In a way you have summarized the issue well,   Sure they mist continue to play winning rugby and as part of that we have to see  as many as possible tries - but my problem is that at his stagge virtually all backline players are defensive sieves - if it was confined to one or two players it is unlikely to be a problem - but to have Cronje, Jantjies and Van Rensburg all failing to defend properly it is indeed a serious problem that accounts for the loss against the Blues and the near loss to the Sunwolves.

Jantjies is at best a poor defender and since he is a fixture in the position as flyhalf - some measures could be taken to improve the situation.   I think that some backline re-organization will help.   Even though the defense of Vorster yesterday was poor - he is usually reltatively sound in defense (at least better than Van Rensburg).   I would play him at 12. move Van Rensburg to 13 and play Mapoe on the wing,    When Combrinck returns I will consider playing him at full back - Coetzee has been relatively ineffective this year from a try-scoring perspective.    

There is a move to play heavier players on the wing and at 13 by many teams.   They do that sacrificing speed in the process,   That cause major problems in the defense at 13 - so it would be better to ensure a competitive player at 13 - the midgets get run over too easily,    

I think Plum has insight here and is onto something here that we overlook, ie a team must play to their strengths (ie the Lions strength is their attacking game which they do well). Sure the ideal is to be good at both attack and defence but when a team concentrates on their strength in this case the ability to run in tries and save energy for that and capitalise on that aspect then the scores look after themselves.

When a side who is poor in defence but good in attack concentrates on this...and ofcourse you can only win on scoring... it uses less energy and saves injury...the opposite was true with the Stompies a few years ago...their defence was good but try scoring was poor.

I know this is unconventional but I believe there is something here.