ANALYSES: The real reasons why the Lions are flopping
The Lions head to Edinburgh this week to face a team #BIG on revenge and they have good reason to be anxious.
The United Rugby Championship is one two-week hiatus – with the focus switching to Europe, for the last 16 and quarterfinals of the Champions Cup and Challenge Cup.
Edinburgh, currently seventh in the URC and having topped Pool Three in the Challenge Cup, has a score to settle with the Lions.
The men from the Scottish capital were at the wrong end of a Lions drubbing at Ellis Park back in October.
The Lions, during a four-match unbeaten start to the season before the inevitable meltdown, put 50 points past the visitors to Ellis Park.
They beat Ulster 35–22, Edinburgh 55–21 (both in Johannesburg), followed by away wins against the basement-dwelling Dragons (23-19) and Italian strugglers Zebre (10-9).
It saw the Lions sitting pretty at second place in the standings.
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It proved to be a false dawn before the now archetypal slide down the rankings – to 14th place after a 42-0 whitewash by Glasgow Warriors this past weekend.
In what was arguably the Johannesburg team’s most appalling performance of the season, the stats showed the reality of the quandaries in The Den.
Poor defence, a shocking lack of discipline and an alarming number of turnovers are all features in the eight losses since that promising start.
They have made an incredible 2264 tackles and missed a shocking 310 – for a tackle success rate of just 77 percent.
Another apropos stat involves turnovers.
Flank JC Pretorius tops the list of individuals on the ‘turnovers won’ – with the Lions having secured 113 as a team, the top team in the URC.
However, the rider is that they conceded almost double that – 218.
The biggest culprits are all key players – Morné van den Berg (18 turnovers conceded), Quan Horn, Marius Louw (both 14) and Richard Kriel (13).
In the demoralising 0-42 loss to Glasgow Warriors, the turnover count also went well into double digits – Ruan Venter (four), JC Pretorius (two), Henco Venter (two) and Quan Horn (all two) were the biggest culprits.
The Lions’ disciplinary stats are equally alarming.
Nine yellow cards and one red card are accompanied by 127 penalties. The scrums, supposedly their strength, have produced 27 offences.
The most penalised Lions players are Marius Louw and Asenathi Ntlabakanye (both nine penalties), followed by Jc Pretorius (eight).
It indicates that there is a serious disconnect between the players and coaching staff – a team that is no longer playing for each other.
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