It took a little quip at a Currie Cup post-match press conference to sum up exactly where the Lions are seen by other teams in the pecking order at the moment.
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After the Lions had just been beaten by 60 points by a rampant Toyota Cheetahs side, coach Hawies Fourie said he had challenged his side to “put 50 on them”, which they did.
“Our mindset was 100 per cent right for this game and we challenged ourselves. We said during the week that we wanted to score 50 points and we knew what the process was to do that and the guys stuck to it, so I was really proud of the performance,” Fourie said after the game, underlining the problems at the Ellis Park franchise at the moment.
It’s tough to know where to start - how a team that was contesting three consecutive Super Rugby finals now finds itself at the bottom of the Carling Currie Cup log and very close to the bottom of the Vodacom United Rugby Championship.
But a failure to retain players, some patchy contracting and an over-reliance on youngsters while not addressing the core issues at the heart of their problems have seen them struggle.
BACKING JUNIORS
Talk from the camp is that the players are frustrated, with a meeting with coaches after their big loss to the DHL Stormers seeing players venting their feelings over a lack of recruitment and the lack of clarity going forward.
From the information of the meeting, the Lions have decided to back their juniors - an extremely talented group that won the SA under-20 Cup last year - but only by a whisker over Western Province.
And a change in coaching personnel was meant to address some of the issues - except the main one being the coaching style of Ivan van Rooyen.
This isn’t an attack on Van Rooyen in any sense - from a conditioning expert for the Super Rugby side, he was thrown in the deep end and made coach - a decision few then or now have been able to explain.
And while appointing a seasoned coaching team around him was meant to help with the issues and create continuity and momentum, it hasn’t done so.
CONTENT WITH LOSSES
Instead in the URC, we’ve seen the Lions give themselves a pat on the back when they’ve lost at Loftus to the Bulls and to a second-string Leinster side in Dublin.
They were praised for their bravery against the odds at the RDS Stadium, but in essence, the Leinster team were missing a dozen Irish Internationals. That cannot be the standard the team measures itself by.
In the Currie Cup, the youngsters have an incredibly talented rising star as a coach in Mzwahkhe Nkosi. They have young talent in abundance.
But what we’ve seen is a lack of cool heads to take the Lions through their process of development. Nkosi has been left with a young team that has little experienced leadership in its core, and has had to face teams like the Cheetahs and Sharks, who are street smart and have the experience to take them through the tough times and move onwards.
Any coach will tell you that young teams grow around old heads. The Bulls using Duane Vermeulen and Morne Steyn is a perfect example.
Yet even that policy has not been consistent. While they backed the youngsters up until now, the policy was reversed last week when a bunch of URC players came back into the side.
From the evidence on the field, it seems the team was disjointed and never looked confident as the Cheetahs scored 10 tries against them.
RECRUITMENT
Recruitment is another worrying factor for Lions fans and players alike. While the Sharks and Bulls, in particular, have made some stellar moves for players of international quality, the Lions have recruited few players since the influx of Bulls players that left when Jake White arrived at Loftus.
Captain Burger Odendaal has been confirmed to move to Wasps, and there have been reports linking the likes of Wandisile Simelane, Vincent Tshituka, Sti Sithole and Carlu Sadie with other teams.
All of this seems to point to a changeroom which isn’t happy at the moment.
It wasn’t all the Lions’ fault though - the loss of Johan Ackermann and then Swys de Bruin’s departure shortly afterwards led to a player exodus that hit them hard.
A list of players compiled by Jacques van der Westhuizen in The Citizen last week makes for tough reading for Lions fans. When added up, it amounts to a strong international-quality squad that has left Ellis Park in the past few years.
The Lions policy may eventually bear fruits and the young talent will develop with time, but in the meantime, they may get a win here or there.
But until there is a unified approach and everyone buys in, the patchy results are likely to continue.
Players who have left Ellis Park in the past few seasons
Props: Jacques van Rooyen, Dylan Smith
Hookers: Akker van der Merwe, Robbie Coetzee, Malcolm Marx
Locks: Lourens Erasmus, Marvin Orie, Franco Mostert, Andries Ferreira, Stephan Lewies
Loose forwards: Cyle Brink, Ruan Ackermann, Kwagga Smith, Marnus Schoeman, James Venter
Scrumhalves: Faf de Klerk, Nic Groom, Dillon Smit
Flyhalves: Elton Jantjies, Jaco van der Walt, Marnitz Boshoff, Shaun Reynolds
Centres: Rohan Janse v Rensburg, Lionel Mapoe, Harold Vorster, Howard Mnisi
Wings: Courtnall Skosan, Ruan Combrinck, Madosh Tambwe
Fullbacks: Andries Coetzee, Tyrone Green
Add to this:
Players who have retired: Warren Whiteley (injury), Julian Redelinghuys (injury), Warwick Tecklenburg (retirement) and Ross Cronje (retirement)
Coaches who have left: Johan Ackermann (Doccomo Red Hurricanes, Japan), Swys de Bruin (tv analyst), JP Ferreira (Munster defence coach) and Joey Mongalo (Bulls defence coach)
Players who have left and returned: Jaco Kriel, Ruan Dreyer.