Lions have a lot to mull over Christmas lunch

The Emirates Lions will go into their festive season break knowing the side is at a crossroads, and if they are to fulfill their desire to be a top four team in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship, they will need to show more desire and enterprise in the second half of the season.

That’s the only conclusion you could take after a significantly positive start for the Johannesburg side, that has turned into a repeat of the same old mistakes and issues as they lost to the DHL Stormers in their final game of the year on Saturday.

Again, the question must be asked if the Lions do have the coaching nuance to get to the top in the competition, especially after the same errors seem to repeat themselves for the past few seasons?

On Saturday though, they would have had a legitimate excuse after Ruben Schoeman’s red card left them playing with 14 men for most of the game. While coach Ivan van Rooyen played down the card afterwards as one that wasn’t with “malice”, it was a poor error in a game where players know that any cleanouts are watched with a magnifying glass.

Unfortunately the die was already set in Cape Town before the card, and while the Lions were brave in their play afterwards, they were never going to win away from home with 14 men, and despite some exceptional performances by the likes of Francke Horne and Morne van den Berg, as well as a high quality cameo by Edwill van der Merwe in the few occasions he actually got the ball, they were never going to win the game.

So the question now comes for the Lions on how they will use this festive break? While they had an impressive start to the URC, and at one time were one of two unbeaten sides in the competition, they have fallen back to seventh on the log after the Cape Town defeat and in their last five games have more than enough food for thought to make the Christmas meal a lot more uncomfortable.

There may be those who will point to the Lions inferior player budget and recognise that this is probably as good as it gets for the team, and that they will be better when Quan Horn (who has a massive influence on their attacking and defensive game) and Henco van Wyk return, but you can’t quite escape the fact that there seems to be something more holding them back.

Most fans will recognise that they are a team of battlers, and excel when the weather backs their running game, but the game management aspect and ability to play at the same level against the bigger sides in the competition is something that has eluded them.

Against Leinster they played a tactically clever game in Dublin, but didn’t have the bravado to fire some shots. Leinster were probably at their worst this season, and still won comfortably against a Lions team intent on only defending.

Then against Munster - in the middle of a coaching change, and missing all their Ireland internationals - the Lions conspired against themselves and were a shadow of the team that was seen in the first few rounds of the URC.

Their defeat against Ospreys came before the kickoff when they selected a young, inexperienced side that were beaten handily and even though they won their return home fixture in the EPCR Challenge Cup against Pau, the French side gave them more than enough of a scare in a high scoreline.

Put all those performances together and the Lions have a lot to chew on this festive season, especially if they want to be judged by the standards they set for themselves - of being a top four side in the URC.

After Saturday’s performance, it was strange to hear Ivan van Rooyen talk about how satisfied he was with the performance.

“Hats off to the guys on the field for coming up with creative ways to get the ball over the advantage line,” Van Rooyen said.

“We had a plan to target them closer to the 22, to execute that under fatigue with 14 guys well done to the players.

“One or two line-out opportunities missed in the 22 and also a couple of breakdown turnovers. So it’s not just one thing, it's the ability to get there and then covert, but some big plays from the Stormers also made it tough.”

The Lions next two games in January are against Montpellier away and then at home against Dragons. After that they host the Vodacom Bulls in the URC derby followed by derbies against the Hollywoodbets Sharks and Stormers in consecutive weeks.

And if they don’t find the fire inside in those weeks, the season could be over in terms of a top eight spot, and the Challenge Cup.

Which makes these few weeks off a very important time for the coaching group.