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A fearless pride of Lions are preparing to pounce on Leinster in their hostile Dublin den despite being tagged as underdogs in a United Rugby Championship quarterfinal clash on Saturday, coach Ivan van Rooyen says.
Although they must negotiate the challenge of beating Leinster in front of their home fans at the Aviva Stadium, the Lions will enjoy the advantage of having an extra week of rest ahead of what promises to be a titanic struggle.
After losing to Munster in their final URC league outing two weeks ago, the Lions opted to travel directly from Limerick to Dublin instead of returning to SA.
While the Lions were fully focused on their quarterfinal clash, Leinster were involved in an energy-sapping Champions Cup final against Bordeaux-Begles in Bilboa.
“No-one’s giving us a chance, and sometimes it’s not a bad thing at all to take the underdog tag,” Van Rooyen said.
“We have massive expectations and genuine excitement for this quarterfinal, and we see it as a golden opportunity for us as a group to take a major step forward and make history against what is effectively a Test outfit.”
“Ten to one Leinster will pick an even stronger, star-studded team for the quarter-final compared to the side that lost to Bordeaux-Begles.
“But we have big expectations and are massively excited for the challenge.”
Lions defence coach Jaque Fourie said the youthful make-up of the SA team’s squad could count in their favour.
“We are playing in a high-stakes quarterfinal with a very young group of guys,” he said.
“The really nice thing about it, if you consider rising players like flankers Siba Mahashe and Batho Hlekani, is they’re so young that they sometimes don’t even care about the elite opponents they’re up against on the park.
“They just want to go out there and play rugby.
“Sometimes, that’s a really nice thing because they don’t overthink the sheer magnitude of the occasion.
“It is a massive quarterfinal, but for us as a management group, the entire team has to completely buy into our tactical plans.
“We all know that play-off rugby is a completely different beast where absolutely anything can happen. We must just be physically and mentally up for it on the day and give it our absolute all.”
Leinster head coach Leo Cullen said Bordeaux had been clinical in their runaway 41-19 win over his team in the Champions Cup final.
“It’s not like we’re a million miles away. I know there’s a decent gap in the scoreline but I think if you reflect upon what’s gone on in the game, the stats in the game, that would maybe be a bit of a reflection in terms of how clinical Bordeaux were,” he said.
“The speed with the way they do things is very impressive. That’s the bit we need to get after. The speed of the way the game is.
“It’s something that we need to reflect on and take stock. How do we move forward as a group? What do we really want to chase down because, listen, we weren’t good enough today.
“Unfortunately when you sit here on the losing side, you’ve clearly just not been good enough on the day. And that’s something we need to reflect upon and get better at for the future.
“Can we get better at it and go on and try to win the URC? Let’s hope so.”
URC Quarterfinals:
Friday: Glasgow Warriors v Connacht. Saturday: Bulls v Munster, Stormers v Cardiff, Leinster v Lions.
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