The Lions are ready to chance their arm when they take on the Sharks in their important United Rugby Championship (URC) match at Ellis Park on Saturday afternoon.
It has been a dreadful past couple of months in the URC for the Lions, losing their last four games in a row, while they have also been on a dreadful run against South African sides, losing their last nine games.
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So in an effort to break their poor losing streaks, Lions coach Ivan van Rooyen believes his charges have to take their chances and make things happen if they want to beat the Sharks.
“If you look at the Stormers, Sharks and Bulls, they all attack differently but keep you under constant pressure there,” explained Van Rooyen.
“So we know we have to chance our arm a little more on attack, and have to force them to make tackles. We have to take the attack to them, because if you just sit back and kick and defend, especially with the speed of the outside backs of all the SA teams, they’ll punish you.
“Every team’s defensive system is subtly different and I know it’ll be extremely hard on our attack. It’s a combination of confidence and chancing your arm a little bit. To sometimes go for a 50/50 offload and not force another ruck.”
Varied game plan
Van Rooyen admitted that the Lions can’t be too one dimensional and have to have a varied game plan if they want to beat the best teams in the competition.
“We know we can’t just play from ruck to ruck, we have to be more dynamic on attack and also with our kicking game,” said Van Rooyen.
“If you look at the top teams, the Stormers, Bulls, Sharks, Leinster, Ulster, Munster, the point of difference is currently their attacking as well as their defensive kicking game.
“(This weekend) is an opportunity for us to go head to head against a team who, if they’re slightly off on confidence it’s important for us to capitalise. If not, we’ve got to find a way to squeeze them.”
