When it was announced that the Emirates Lions would be coming to the URC this season along with the Sharks, Stormers and Bulls, they had the air of being the “oh yeah” team. By that I mean, they’re the team you’re reminded of when you name the three big teams from South Africa and can’t think of the last one. Oh yeah, the Lions.
It’s not really fair when you think about it. The Lions made three Super Rugby finals in a row in the middle to late 2010s – 2016, 2017 and 2018 – and did so playing an incredibly progressive style of rugby that, in my opinion, heavily influenced Allister Coetzee’s Springbok side of the same era. They lost all three finals but that Lions squad of that era was packed with top-class players. Malcolm Marx, Kwagga Smith, Franco Mostert, Ruan Combrink, Jaco Kriel, Elton Jantjies, Faf De Klerk, Akker Van Der Merwe, Ruan Akkerman… that’s a lot of very good players who, under the guidance of Johann Akkerman and Swys De Bruin, played some really interesting, attacking rugby that saw them pick off some excellent sides on their way to each final.
When Johan Akkerman left for Gloucester in the summer of 2017, it was the beginning of something of an exodus. They still made the final that year but the aftermath of that game was when things really began to slide. Between 2017 and 2019, they lost De Klerk and Janse Van Rensburg to Sale, Kriel, Mostert, Dreyer and Ruan Akkerman to Gloucester, Marx and Smith to Japan and even some of the lads they signed initially to replace some of the earlier departures in Stephan Lewies and Tyrone Green (to Quins), Madosh Tambwe (to the Sharks) and Aphiwe Dyantyi (to a doping suspension).
So the Lions of today – 14th in the URC – aren’t really anywhere close to where I think they will end up once they are finished rebuilding. They have a tonne of talent in their squad, both presently and historically, so I think it’s only a matter of time before they start to show the URC what they’re capable of under their young, exciting coach Ivan Van Rooyen who, after a rough introduction to the top job, is finally beginning to show what the Lions are capable of.
For Munster, acclimatised as they are to the altitude at this stage, the key will be to stop the Lions from playing with the momentum, tempo and power that they are capable of, especially in Ellis Park. Our needs from this game are simple – it has to be a win. Getting a five-point return from this tour would keep Munster right in line with our direct opposition and six points would put us in great stead, knowing as we do that Leinster, Ulster, Glasgow and Edinburgh all have to travel here later in the season where hard decisions might have to be made with regards to squad makeups with the European knockout stages looming large. This is also our game in hand on Ulster and Leinster so getting the maximum will be incrementally more valuable than it might seem on the face of it.
Emirates Lions: 15. Quan Horn, 14. Stean Pienaar, 13. Wandisle Simelane, 12. Burger Odendaal, 11. Edwil van der Merwe, 10. Jordan Hendrikse, 9. Morne van den Berg, 1. Sti Sithole, 2. Jaco Visagie, 3. Carlü Sadie, 4. Ruben Schoeman, 5. Reinhard Nothnagel, 6. Sibusiso Sangweni, 7. Vincent Tshituka, 8. Francke Horn
Replacements: 16. PJ Botha, 17. JP Smith, 18. Ruan Dreyer, 19. Ruan Venter, 20. Emmanuel Tshituka, 21. Nico Steyn /Ginter Smuts, 22. Manuel Rass, 23. Tiaan Swanepoel.
The Lions are a very good team going forward, be that in the scrum – where they are big, heavy and powerful on the tighthead side – or at the lineout maul.
They used both of these to good effect against Leinster recently where their scrum, in particular, was so effective it arguably should have won them the game. The Lions have one of the heaviest tighthead sides in the URC and they have a knack of making you feel every KG of it when it counts. Ruben Schoeman and Carlü Sadie are BIG men and they love getting a jump on you during your put-in with an early shove that obliterates you right up the middle.
You can see them getting pinged for an early engagement on that very thing here;
It’s an easy one for the referee to give but it’s a good example of what Sadie and Schoeman don’t want to be doing and that’s holding a crouch and bind for too long. They gave another one away in the second half. They don’t want to be hanging around burning calories holding a frame, they want a nice quick put-in so they can start chasing you which is exactly what a team who don’t back their own scrum would look to do – which is looking to go quickly from the put-in to get channel 1 ball. It’s a sensible tactic, in theory, but the Lions are really good at attacking hard on the strike to collapse in through the hooker.
Sadie is listed at 134kg and Schoeman at 123kg so when we have control of the put-in, I think we want to make this nice and slow. Let’s back the Wycherleys and Niall Scannell to hold up our end against the pressure and start squeezing the Lions on our put in.
Schoeman, in particular, scrummages really low on the tighthead side which, on the first shove, is incredibly difficult to live with on both sides of the ball. But when you scrummage that low, most of your energy is on the first shove and you get to reload for a chase through only when the tighthead gets to step forward. If Sadie doesn’t go forward on the first step, it doesn’t work.
Now we might end up under big pressure there anyway and be forced to get it in and out quickly but I think there’s value in attacking Sadie’s size in the scrum as opposed to just looking to avoid him.
