VIDEO: Lions to draw inspiration from Boks
SPOTLIGHT: Forward dominance will be vital for the Lions when they take on Scarlets in Round Four of the United Rugby Championship.
After three narrow defeats in the opening rounds of the URC, the Lions are currently 14th in the URC standings.
The Johannesburg side will be desperate to record a win to kickstart their season finally.
Taking a leaf out of the Springboks’ handbook, the Lions scrums coach Julian Redelinghuys indicated that the set-piece will be the focal point against the Welsh side.
The Lions’ scrum has been a standout, dominating Benetton – despite last weekend’s loss to the Italian outfit.
“Us as South Africans, especially when you look at the World Cup or whatever team play against a foreign team, we do pride ourselves [on our physicality] – whether scrum time, maul time,” Redelinghuys said from Wales ahead of the Round Four clash.
“So it is an area where we will look to assert dominance.
“The fortunate thing about the Scarlets is they have a 4G pitch, which is a mix between Astro and grass, so the conditions are perfect for scrums.
“We are really looking forward to scrumming on the steady pitch.”
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‘Play to win; not play to lose’
The scrum guru admitted that Scarlets are a very unpredictable team in their own backyard.
The Welsh side suffered two defeats – to the Bulls and Stormers in South Africa.
However, they claimed a win over Cardiff at home last weekend.
“They had a tough tour in South Africa [losing to Bulls and Stormers] and then they played Cardiff at home and played totally different,” the former Bok prop said.
“[It was the] same personnel, but it was almost like a different team.
“So the difficulty here is, depending on the weather, teams tend to change their strategy a lot.
“But we can’t focus on that [Scarlets tactics and form].
“We have to focus on what we have to do.
“After the first few games, we have to sort out the stuff we can fix internally and hopefully it will translate on the field.”
From a player’s perspective, Lions tighthead prop Asenathi Ntlabakanye believes his team can overcome this unwanted period.
Ntlabakanye scored the team’s only try last weekend against Benetton.
“If we look at the past three games, it is a game of small margins and any of those games we could have won – been three out of three,” Ntlabakanye said.
“I do think the guys are fully confident that we can overturn this run and this weekend is another opportunity to get a result.”
