Roaring success

Lions 44 Hurricanes 29 (2017) Lions 42 Crusaders 25 (2016) have forged their success on a hard, fast dry track in the afternoon sun.

No doubt Super Rugby’s conference format and draw gave the Lions a serious advantage by allowing them to avoid Kiwi teams until last week’s semifinal against the Hurricanes, thus granting a much easier route to a home final.

Last week, the Lions also appeared to benefit from a couple of dubious calls.

But their recent record against Kiwi teams in playoff matches at Ellis Park tells us two things: the Lions are a formidable side on home soil, even more so in-front of a 63,000 sellout, and the Crusaders may need to score in excess of 40 points to claim the crown.

In their last three home playoff games against New Zealand opposition the Lions have scored 42 points (Crusaders, quarter-final, 2016), 42 points (Highlanders, semifinal, 2016) and 44 points (Hurricanes, semifinal, last week).

What’s more, Johan Ackermann’s men hammered the Blues 43-5 at Ellis Park last year and average 47 points across the board at home this season.

They love to use the ball, love to play at pace, and, as the Hurricanes discovered last week, never stop coming.

The Crusaders’ defence laid the foundations for last week’s convincing semifinal victory over the Chiefs. After making 117 more tackles than the Chiefs, there may be questions about how much they have left in the tank, but the Crusaders will back that same resilience to restrict the Lions’ ability to quickly build scoreboard pressure. Clearly, though, the Crusaders attack also needs to fire.

From the outside looking in, backs coach Leon MacDonald has made a huge difference in this area.

The Crusaders attack has evolved from largely throwing the ball to Nemani Nadolo and hoping he would break the line to being innovative with cross-field kicks and creative with backline moves to exploits space on the outside. Seven times this season the Crusaders have amassed more than 40 points, with their biggest victory coming up the highway from Johannesburg, when they put 62 on the Bulls in Pretoria. Good omen, perhaps. As always the onus will be put on the experienced All Blacks to lay the platform up-front, to target set-piece supremacy and control the pace before the bench is unleashed to counter altitude.

But the backline will be called upon much more than they were in the past two weeks.

Against the Highlanders, in particular, with conditions especially dire in the quarter-final, some of the Crusaders backs barely touched the ball.

This week the spark must come