The 10bet Lions have been trying to manage their way through the toughest week of their careers, still reeling from the sudden death of lock Hyron Andrews and now moving on to Edinburgh for the first of two weeks of tour rugby in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship.
And as scrum coach Julian Redelinghuys reminded those who would listen, the team is simply doing their best to navigate waters they have never been in before.
Losing a teammate a day before a game, playing through the grief and then continuing on the tour won’t be easy for any of them, especially as there is little time to grieve.
Focusing on the next task in hand, while trying to navigate the emotions can be tough, and the Lions are doing the best they can.
It doesn’t get any easier in rugby terms over the next few weeks as they face the two Scottish teams - ranked one and two in the URC and both unbeaten this season, in two Friday night games.
NO MANUAL FOR HANDLING A DEATH
“We’ve been saying this since it happened: there’s no manual for this. We don’t know how the players are going to respond,” Redelinghuys said.
“We can only do what we can to support the guys as much as we can and do what we think will be best for the weekend.
“I don’t think there’s any team that has had to go through a specific thing like this, where a player died in camp a day before a game and then they were on tour for another two weeks.”
“Coach Jaque Fourie was talking to the team about when they played for the Barbarians, where you’ve got no prep. You just switch on mentally when you step between the four white lines. Now, to shift from the emotional side and focus on the rugby process is something that’s not easy, but we’re trying the best we can.”
Redelinghuys thanked the Players organisation, MyPlayers for offering support services to the side, while the Lions also have a psychologist with them on tour now, as well as Redelinghuys’s wife, who is a pastor and grief counsellor, to help them work through the grief.
PSYCHOLOGIST, GRIEF COUNSELLOR HELPED
At home, the Lions are working alongside Andrews’s family to repatriate his body and assist with funeral and other arrangements. They will release details as soon as it has been finalised.
“My wife coincidentally was travelling France with her family. She was also able to be there with us throughout the evening in La Rochelle with us. So, yeah, she was part of that and Bronwyn, who is our psychologist, was amazing throughout this process. Yeah, so everyone grieves differently and you have to respect everyone's process, and no one takes it the same.
“And we just said we want to be respectful towards the family in this town, it's the mother and the two boys, and the rest of the larger family. So that was a viewpoint from the start. So how can we be respectful? How can we be most respectful towards the family, in our actions, in what we do, what we decide?
“And now for everyone to go through this process, I think it helps us being in a team, you are very seldom on tour by yourself. You always are out with a roommate or in a team environment, which I think is good. You don't need your thoughts to run away with you, and you almost like to go back to the process.”
LONG TRAVEL
The Lions had a long day of travel between La Rochelle and Edinburgh on Sunday, and decided to give the players a day off on Monday, so Tuesday has been the only training session thus far for the team.
“The teams pulled together during adversity, and this is something that has been good to see - how the team is putting together and how the guys are supporting each other throughout this town.”
Asked to fill in the blanks of the hours after the team were informed of Andrews’s death, Redelinghuys took those listening through one of the toughest nights for the Lions.
“I can give you a timeline of how the practical things worked for the team, we were busy doing a walkthrough. Our captains were meant to be late that afternoon. But given what happened, we didn't have our captain’s run.
“They didn't do much the rest of the day except spend time with each other, supporting each other. And then there was a lot of admin, are we going to play or are we not going to play?
PLAYERS VOTED TO PLAY
“We put up a vote to the players to say, are we willing to play? How are we going to honour Hyron and his family best? Is it by playing? Is it by not playing? So all the decisions had to be made in a short time span.
“You can only be postponed by one day or then play or then forfeit the game. So those were the options which we had to discuss. That was discussed on Friday already. When the decision was made that we are going to honour Hyron and his family by playing, the decision was made, we still didn't do the captain's run.
“And then it was just the rest of the afternoon off. We spent the evening together. And then Saturday morning, it was a normal matchday programme, even though it's not really normal. But if you talk practically it was a normal matchday with the normal routines of a normal matchday.”
The Lions will name their team to face Edinburgh later in the week, probably on Thursday.