Lions sideline revenge talk

Rudolph Jacobs

Plotting revenge is the furthest thing from the Lions’ mind ahead of their Super Rugby clash against the Hurricanes in Wellington on Saturday.

The Lions return for the first time to the venue where they lost the 2016 final 20-3 to the Hurricanes.

But coach Swys de Bruin said yesterday from Down Under they would rather look at ways to fix the happenings of last week when they went down to the Reds in Brisbane.

“We are not going to try to set a record straight, we are busy with a campaign and every game we regard as a process,” said De Bruin.

“We try our best to win the next game and if we don’t win it we work on the next challenge, but there’s no talk of revenge, it’s only another away game for us.”

After trailing 24-0 last weekend to the Reds, the Lions came storming back to score four second half tries, but De Bruin said there was no pointing of fingers.

“We are a professional team so hard words are not always the solution, it was only the proper words were spoken at halftime and we changed our strategy a bit,” said De Bruin.

“But why we didn’t play like we prepared in that first half we’ll never know, we have looked into that and we are focusing on the next game.”

Having recovered from a chest injury wing Aphiwe Dyantyi (above) has been flown over to New Zealand, effectively serving as a replacement for injured captain Warren Whiteley and could already feature in the match day line-up due to be announced today by De Bruin.

Centre Lionel Mapoe, who missed the Reds clash with a groin injury, will also be back in the mix, according to the Lions coach.

“We fortunately don’t have serious injuries and Lionel has been cleared and when the team are announced tomorrow his name will be there,” said De Bruin.

We are a professional team so hard words are not always the solution, it was the proper words that were spoken at halftime and we changed our strategy a bit

Lions coach Swys de Bruin