Lions show their warrior spirit as Stormers duel awaits

Lions show their warrior spirit as Stormers duel awaits

Morgan Bolton

An extraordinary 15 minutes is all it took for the Lions to keep their push for a United Rugby Championship (URC) quarter-final alive on Saturday night by setting up an almighty clash against the Stormers in a fortnight.

Down to 14 men and trailing 14-8 to an explosive Glasgow Warriors side at Ellis Park this past weekend, the immediate assessment would have been a grim one in the 47th minute of the clash. The visitors had just scored their second try with Euan Ferrie muscling his way over the whitewash.

Both Rabz Maxwane and Sanele Nohamba scored tries against Glasgow Warriors. | . BackpagePix

The introduction of Sanele Nohamba, replacing Gianni Lombard in the 48th minute, however, seemed to galvanise the hosts. It kicked-off a truly outrageous period of play where the Lions scored four unanswered tries, completed by an intercept by Nohamba in the 63rd minute, to race out to a 36-14 lead.

It was heart-pounding stuff, and will certainly be recalled fondly by those that attended the match in seasons to come.

“All our watches said breath and calm down,” coach Ivan van Rooyen said gaily, after the match, of that period.

“What made it enjoyable was to see the effort, the fight and what it means. Guys were being desperate and chasing back; guys were being desperate and chasing the kick – that was really special.”

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It would not be untrue to state that the red card to Ruan Venter in the 35th minute should have played nicely into the hands of the Warriors. Franco Smith’s outfit, however, were uncharacteristically slipshod in their play, making numerous errors in their handling, and lacked a clinical approach while in the Lions’ red zone.

Moreover, Glasgow effectively played against 14 men for 65 minutes of the match, and for at least eight minutes of that, against 13, due to yellow cards to Venter and Francke Horn.

“(The Lions) didn’t outplay us,” a glum Smith said, “we made errors.

“We went a little bit off script,” he continued. “We haven’t played teams with 14 or 13 players that often and then you come into a situation where suddenly you get good reward for what you are doing, you get a bit overexcited.”

It was an assessment that Van Rooyen would have agreed with.

“We also got lucky to be honest,” he explained.

“We held them up two or three times over the tryline. They kicked it dead once or twice. At that moment, at half-time, we felt that we were really in this and when we stuck to the plan as we felt that it was working.”

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After all of that, the Lions remain just outside the play-off spots in ninth on 49 points. They are denied by both Benetton and Edinburgh – also on 49 points – in eighth and seventh, respectively, due to the fact that those teams have won more matches.

The Lions could reach as high as sixth still, but will need to beat the Stormers with a bonus-point, and hope Ulster lose to Munster without collecting any points. Benetton and Edinburgh, meanwhile, will face each other in the last round, offering its own set of permutations that the Lions will have to consider.

Said Van Rooyen: “The Stormers have exceptional X-factor and if you play into that, they can really punish you.

“We have to look really closely at how we can put them under pressure in terms of play-off play. It’s a derby and we have to win to get into the Top 8 … I can’t think of a better occasion than two South African teams. The first couple of days will be to freshen up a little bit.

“There is a fine balance between preparing and recovering. The first week will be mainly focused on recovering, and then Stormers’ week is just to get the bodies ready.”