Lions reveal plan to shock Bulls
CURRIE CUP SPOTLIGHT: The Lions will be looking to pressure the Bulls into submission when they meet in their Currie Cup semifinal at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday.
Ivan van Rooyen’s side lost twice to the Bulls already this season. Their first meeting was in Super Rugby Unlocked, which the Bulls won 30-25 in Johannesburg.
The Bulls were victorious again in the league phase of the Currie Cup when they beat the Lions 22-15 a few weeks ago.
After those results, the Lions will be underdogs heading into Saturday’s encounter, but Van Rooyen is confident his team will be able to shock the Bulls.
“We played them twice and came close twice. We did create enough opportunities, we just didn’t manage to take them,” said Van Rooyen.
“You need to be brave in play-off games. You got to be willing to give it a full crack and we are keen to go there and see if we can put them under pressure. Whether it is with ball in hand, without ball in hand or with a kicking game.
“We’ve worked in the last two weeks on decision-making and how we can apply pressure and hopefully constant pressure for 80 minutes. We are excited to see how the guys are going to react.”
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Van Rooyen said there was a lot to learn from their previous meeting in Pretoria.
“The learnings from the previous game were that we allowed them to dictate the tempo of the game completely, so having a crack isn’t necessarily just throwing the ball around,” he added.
“Having a crack is seeing if we can dictate the tempo of the game a little bit.
“If we feel they are putting us under big pressure on defence then how can we maybe transition that to a kicking game. Having a crack is being able to apply pressure in different ways and we had a good review after our previous game against the Bulls and we are excited to see how we can do it this weekend.”
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