Jaque Fourie says the Lions have hit the reset button after their January nightmare against the Bulls. With the Stormers heading to Ellis Park this Saturday, can the men from Joburg prove they’ve actually fixed their systems? Photo: Backpagepix
Image: Backpagepix
The drubbing at the hands of the Bulls gave the Lions an almighty fright, one that woke the team up to the realities of their shortcomings and led to a degree of introspection, according to assistant coach Jaque Fourie.
At the end of January, the Bulls made the trek down to Ellis Park and humiliated the Lions 52-17. The Joburg outfit was taken aback by the defeat, and at the time seemed perplexed at the severity of the loss. The Joburgers have managed to restore some dignity since, beating a weakened Sharks team 34-22 last weekend.
Nonetheless, the loss to the Bulls remains a nadir this season that the Lions will look to avoid repeating. As such, former Bok centre Fourie revealed on Tuesday, during the Lions’ training session, that they had to rethink their systems after the Bulls game.
“We would be stupid if we had come back on the Monday 9after the Bulls loss) and did the same thing,” said Fourie.
“There were a few things that we had to change to make us better. When you are winning, you sometimes keep doing the same stuff. So, we came back to the office and looked at the stuff we had to change. We have done that and it has made us better.”
The proof of those changes, however, will arguably only come under scrutiny on Saturday when the Lions face the Stormers at Ellis Park in a United Rugby Championship (URC) clash (kick-off 2.30pm). The Capetonians themselves are reeling after two consecutive losses and will be desperate to get their URC campaign back on track.
Currently third in the URC standings on 36 points, they hold seven points over the seventh-placed Lions. It is a different picture in the SA Shield mini-league, however, where a victory for the Doornfontein-based outfit, and a loss for the Sharks in their clash against the Bulls at Loftus, could result in a rare triumph for the Lions.
The major concern for the Lions, however, will be their continued lack of consistency at crucial moments. Previously, their campaigns have oscillated between peaks and troughs far too often, and this has certainly been the case once again this season.
Good victories are far too often followed by demoralising losses, and it is a failing that Fourie and Co will look to avoid this weekend.
“We sometimes get to Saturday and we play not to lose,” Fourie explained. “We had to change that: We want to play to win.
"After the Bulls — and even when we were standing watching that game — we said to each other, 'it looks like the rugby is out of the window and the guys haven’t trained anything'. Hopefully, it was just a once-off thing.
“We know how to play rugby, we know how to tackle, we know how to do stuff, so we got back to doing our basics well. The week that we had off after the Bulls game, we changed a lot of stuff and hopefully we can build on that to get better and better,” Fourie concluded.
* Morgan Bolton is the national sports editor for Independent Media and editor of our YouTube channel The Clutch