The Lions provide many timely lessons

Firstly the myth that we should play NZ at their own game. Nope, we need a more structured game where our forwards can get to the breakdown. The Lions were overwhelmed because they couldn't get the numbers and once the superior Canes backs had the ball it was all over. The Sharks game plan against the Chiefs is the way to go.

Secondly all those reputations took a dent. Mostert is not an international lock. Kriel was a mixed bag, although to be fair he had little support at the breakdown. The break down his side that led to a try was inept though. Dylan Smith is not an international prop. Whiteley is not an international number 8. Faf is a brave player, but probably not test class. Nor is Mapoe.
Then we have Jantjies who has looked good in the low intensity Super Rugby matches to date....today the pressure clearly got to him....intercepts, hospital passes, penalties missing touch. A complete failure to exploit the Canes rush using the boot. He was tactically naive.
There is a lot in the Lions to be admired. They tried hard....made some good close in passes. Acker was indefatigable. The loosies tackled like demons in the second half. Their quick pass game and high paced play has its application. But that isn't trying to get out of your own 22....so much of the Canes momentum came there....and the first time the Canes let the Lions into the game, came from trying to force things in their own 22.
It's a good thing all these lessons are laid bare now, rather than in the knockouts or heaven forbid, the tests.

 Mozart
I have been the one person on this site that said I still have reservations about Jantjies and that remains my personal view.   He was not up to standard and that remains a fact.   Under pressure he is and remains a serious liability.  
The Lions had a serious problem -- their props are virtually all injured and their centers are serious defensive liabilities,  Mnisi especially is basically useless.   
Two intercept tries because of poor passing of the ball was the start of the poor performance by the team.        

 The Lions have been punching above their weight, very unlikely that  could continue.

They had a poor day. But we are only halfway through the season. Let's see how they look after the break. Let's also remember that they were playing with a non-existent scrum. Also, I re-watched the game a bloody hell there were a lot of uncalled offsides. A good few occasions when Faf passed the ball the defensive line was already right up. I still don't know why I hardly saw Whiteley and Teclenburg(spelling) helping at rucks. It was very strange.

Not to harp on, but the Lions did beat the Stormers and they did beat the Chiefs at home. The Lions bench is nowhere near as loaded as that of either of those teams. Also before yesterday's game Naas made a very obvious yet valid point. He said a fly half is only as good as his service. Jantjies had no time yesterday and time after time he got the ball and was tackled immediately. I'll be the first one to admit that he has cracked when he does but yesterday's performance was more down to poor scrum and lack of break down support. Jantjies did miss one penalty kick to touch though and there is zero excise for that.

 Plum that's all true. But in your gut can't you see Jantjies looking exactly like that against an aggressive NZ or Aussie team?  
The Lions will probably do better, but a great deal of their success has come because they have been more intense than their opponents.....their win against the Chiefs wasn't much different from the Sharks narrow loss.....it was more about the Chiefs playing at 95%, not at 100% as they would against the Saders.

None of the Lions went to the WC. That's either because our coaches are abysmally imperceptive, or because this is a team of good, but below test level players. The. Latter makes more sense.

 Mozart
Meyer was foolish in his squad selection for the WC - whether you like it or not.   There were way to many passengers in the squad.  I would say that there are at least four Lions players who should have been in the squad in place of Brits, Jannie du Plesis, Alberts and Kirchner.   
Paige has been horrendously poor in Super 5 this year and the Bulls have dropped him from their starting line-up.   So he was another player who should not have bee n there.     

 HM lost to the ABs at the  WC  by 2 points in a game we led much of the way. The  Lions lost to 2 NZ teams before this weekend  and yesterday by 33 points to the Canes at home. And HM is a fool and Ackerman a profit,
You guys make me laugh.

 This from the idiot who supported Meyer all the way in his team selection and game plan.  The type of rugby played in the semi is always a losing game irrespective of how wide the margin of the loss is.  Meyer's teams played the AB's in 8 tests since 2012 and lost 7 of those.   They lost nearly half the tests played in 2014 and 2015 irrespective of whom they played.
The laugh is unfortunately based on idiocy in the case of Mozart.       

 Wrong Tokkie, they played 24 tests and won 15.  The Lions have played 9 games and won 6...the difference a Kriel missed tackle against Japan. But Ackerman is a genius and HM is a fool.

 Mozart, Lions are top of the table for Africa league 2 with 6 wins 3 losses; they have the same record as the Stormers so Lions and stormers are top of their respective leagues.
To throw out the game plan the Lions have used because of a bad day against a team that was hot is an over reaction at best & nuts at worst
Canes were fired up after a loss to the Chiefs, they were kicking themselves & took it out on the poor wee Lions. The Canes played very well & racked up early points which changed the game so Lions were in bad shape. Making it worse was the 50/50 passes of the Canes kept sticking so the score kept increasing out of sight. The game could have been different. Don't get me wrong the best team won & the Canes would win 8/10 times but on this day the wheels feel off the Lions wagon. Normally they would have done better. NO NEED TO PANIC & TRY & CHANGE THE GAME PLAN.
For Africa to field a decent BOK team teams like the Lions need to keep playing a balanced game.
The Bulls demonstrated that you can play hard tight 5 rugby with offloads and do well. this type of game plan with a bit of what the Lions are doing is the way to go.

Big problem for Lions was with their top props out they lost their dominance in the scrums. Vorster too makes a difference.I would not like to see them change their style. They are honing it and doing reasonably well.Lions of course dont have good depth and they are playing guys like Mostert and Whitely  into the ground.
Goooo Lions

 Glad to see that wee Beeno agrees with me - I guess His self-imposed exile has done some good

JW at some point your ramblings will hit the mark!  
The political battle being fought to determine the future of the world is at a critical point and more interesting and important than the rugby.Go Trum*p, Farage, Le Pen AfD etc and Brexit. The fight back is growing by the day!

The Boks tried the Lions game plan in 2013, when we ran gloriously and lost. The Boks were praised to high heaven, but the ABs won. We tried to run from deep at the half, JJ got turned and the ABs scored. We thought JJ would run to glory, instead Barrett ran to glory over JJ.

It's not smart to choose a strategy which will always be executed better by your arch enemy.

 Why the hell are you onto that test when you know full well that it was Alberts, Morne and JJ Engelbrecht who caused the loss by clueless play.    What you do not want to mention is that when the Springboks tried to play their according to you traditional game they never even got close to beating the All Blacks bar in one test in 2014.  
You are too close in your mind to even accept that the fact is that the whole team needs to be competitive - not 8 players only.         

" Mozart, Lions are top of the table for Africa league 2 with 6 wins 3 losses; they have the same record as the Stormers so Lions and stormers are top of their respective leagues."

Uhmm. Close inspection actually reveals that, statistically, the Bulls are the current form SA team.

    Team            P    W   D    L    PF/PA    Pts

1.    Stormers    9    6    0    3    248:158    29   
2.    Bulls          8    6    1    1    244:167    28   
3.    Lions         9    6    0    3    268:235    27

 Bulls have a better balanced side. 
We need Etzebeth back, Elstadt at 7.
Huw Jones at 13 and De jongh on the wing maybe worth a shot. 
Pack will dominate and backs will defend better and be acceptable on attack.I hope Allende returns to from quickly.

We tried this run from everywhere stuff in 2001 with the guy who replaced Mallett, in 2008, in 2013 and no doubt will try it this year.....and fail. When you run it wide all the time, get the ball on the deck in the centers, Kriel is never going to defend it against the likes of Kuridrani or Folau.....nor is he going to stop them in space. Nor is Allende based on Saturday and all the other Saturday's.
We won't win with the Lions game plan, it's a school girl fantasy.

Wow, the usual predictable nonsense concluded after a loss.....so now all of a sudden Mostert is not a test lock, Faf not a test 9, Mapoe not a test standard centre, Kriel had a mixed bag and Jantjies cracked under pressure......what utter rubbish.
Firstly the Lions were always going to struggle without their two first choice tightheads, they are a side that play a great brand of rugby with the least talent at their disposal......there is a reason none of the tightfive really come into consideration for higher honours other than Mostert as a potential 7 and Ackers as a back up hooker down the line......add the fact that in Tecklenburg they have an average 7.
Whiteley and Kriel stand tall and that showed, both had good games, in particular Kriel who was the best loosie on the field.
The Lions were piss poor at the breakdown as they failed to impose themselves physically given the make up of their tightfive and Tecklenburg at 7.......Smith is too small to be considered a real threat as a loosehead, poor Scholtz got handed a lesson on debut at 3, Ferreria is a handy lock but way down the pecking order.....Mostert as always had a good game giving his all.
It was pathetic how the forwards let the Canes turn them over at the breakdown......which is where the game was lost
It had stuff all to do with the backs, playing catch up rugby was always going to see anything but structured play from the backs......Faf was fine as was Jantjies......where was this so called hospital pass, what utter rubbish, one missed touch kick, big deal, we see that from ever kicker
What the hell did Mapoe not do to suddenly not merit being test status....what utter rubbish
There was no standout Canes player.......they were far better as a unit, they were far better at the breakdown.....that is how they won that game....Barrett was no better than Jantjies, their locks were not better than Mostert, their 13 was not better than Mapoe
The Canes exploited the lack of physicality the Lions tightfive have....they would not have done that to the Bulls, Sharks or Stormers.
The game was dead with intercept tries against the run of play and poor management of the breakdown......it had stuff all to do with individual players.....but more that the Canes forwards were better than the Lions for obvious reasons......you cant expect to beat a top NZ side with 4 average players in your pack.
Jaco Kriel was by far the best flanker on the field....no flanker came close to 11 runs 45m gained 1 clean break, 3 defenders beaten, 2 turnovers made and try scored in a side that got thumped.

 Any write-up did not disguise the fact that as a team the Lions under-performed/  Granted they have bad a problem at tighthead - but for the rest the backline was pathetic bar Rossouw.   Jantjies was the root cause of the problem.  
Kriel was good as well - for the rest not much to write home about.    

Look here dumb arse.....how what the hell did the backs have to do with it when the forwards failed at the breakdown.....are you really this stupid?
Kindly explain how Jantjies was to blame.......take your time......ignorance is bliss

 Actually Jantjies was operating with 57% of the possession and 61% of the territory. They won all of their 7 scrums, all but one of their lineouts and almost all their rucks and mauls.

They did turnover the ball 25 times vs 17 for the Canes. But here's the crucial thing....almost every one of those turnovers originated with the backs, who were dominated in the tackle and stripped by their opponents.
So no, the story that poor Jantjies was operating with little/poor ball and the backs had no chance is a myth. This all went down because of backline domination, not forward domination.

 Without a game breaker like Vorster the Lions inside backs are weak - especially Jantjies and Mnisi are not up to standard.    

 Game breaker like Vorster.....what game, what break?

 Oh the Canes were offside....hahaha.

I never said it, I read an article that did....but that's beside the point.....they shut the Lions down well, whether it was legal or not......the fact that the Lions forwards never protected the ball carrier, never cleared the opposition out accounted for their loss.....but then again look at the make up of the Lions forwards.....Akers is good at 2, Kriel is fantastic at 6, Mostert is great but better suited to 7 and Whiteley while a great player, is hardly your physical type.....for the rest of the pack its pretty average stuff......but the best the Lions have to work with but for Lourens Erasmus who should be at lock.
The loss of Rede linghuis, Dreyer and Marx is huge for them