Stormers must find their ‘away’ feet against clever Lions
THE LIONS have seen better Super Rugby days, that we all know. But Stormers centre EW Viljoen isn’t expecting an easier battle against the “energetic” Johannesburg side than he would have, say, last year.
Stormers assistant coach Russell Winter was spot on on Tuesday when he said that they can have zero complacency going into this game. The Lions may have been struggling (their fourout-of-seven stat proves that), but the Stormers haven’t been hitting their away targets either.
And while the Lions haven’t been on song this season, they can never be considered an easy team to beat. And the outside centre knows that they’re going to have to be on point in Johannesburg this weekend.
“They have a few good seasons behind them and it’s a good opportunity for us to prove ourselves against a good team and show what we’re capable of. They’re very energetic, they throw the ball around and they’re not scared to play. We play the same brand of rugby and it’s difficult to defend against teams like those. They don’t just run, they’re quite clever, they play in the right areas of the field,” he said.
“Every game against them is always a big game, we have to work hard to play at the best of our abilities this weekend. It’s always nice to play there – Ellis Park is a proud venue and we’re looking forward to playing there.”
Viljoen also sees their fixture at Ellis Park as “another opportunity to play together and improve”.
The Stormers will be going into the fixture after suffering a 33-23 defeat to the Bulls at Loftus at the weekend. In that game, the Bulls had the upper hand throughout, and although the Stormers did well to fight back in the first half and turn a sizeable deficit into only a one-point gap at half time, they made too many mistakes, and the two yellow cards they were dealt obviously didn’t make things any easier either.
But although “improvement” is of course vital, at some point that improvement needs to convert into results.
And with a predictably tough one coming up against the 2017 Super Rugby finalists and another thereafter against the Sharks in Durban, the Stormers need to win this away game and get their momentum and confidence up there.