Lions seeking their best at home

The Lions are aiming to turn Ellis Park into a fortress over the next four rounds in the United Rugby Championship (URC) as they chase a place in the competitions top eight to make the play-offs.

The 11th placed Lions have five pool matches left in the URC this season, with the next four at home before they face a tough final game away against the Stormers in Cape Town to end things off.

Despite playing their next four at home on the highveld against overseas opposition, it won’t be easy at all for the Lions and they will have to be at their absolute best if they are to get the wins they need to force themselves into the playoff places.

With them hosting Irish giants Leinster and Munster, as well as Welsh side Cardiff and Scottish high flyers Glasgow Warriors, it is set to be an extremely difficult end-of-season home run.

Currently Leinster are top of the URC standings, Glasgow is second and Munster are fourth, while the only team below them on the log that they will face is Cardiff who are one spot off them in 12th place.

The Lions however may have a good chance of getting a win over Leinster, if they decide to leave all their stars at home and bring a second-string team to SA, as they have done in previous seasons, but that still won’t guarantee a win after the Lions were beaten by those second stringers last season.

Glasgow and Munster are both chasing top four places and both were recently knocked out of the Champions Cup, so they are both likely to bring full strength teams which will be the ultimate test for the Lions, while Cardiff will be firm underdogs in that game.

“It’s good to be back in Joburg and we are ready to tackle the remaining fixtures in the URC,” said Lions captain Marius Louw (left).

“We have some big home games coming up against very good teams. The guys are fired up and ready for what lies ahead. We are going to rely heavily on home ground advantage to get us into the top eight.”