Will a fresh pride of Lions hit back in style as they did in 2016?
JOHANNESBURG: Johan Ackermann was not the most popular man when he sent a second-string team to Buenos Aires at the end of the roundrobin phase last year.
His team lost to the Jaguares and the Lions gave up the chance of finishing top of the Super Rugby log.
But while a fresh and rested full-strength Lions team went on to win their home quarter-final and semi-final – against the Crusaders and Highlanders mind you – they had to travel to the top-placed Hurricanes to contest their first final. Of course, the Lions lost atrocious conditions in in Wellington.
While we will never know how differently things might have turned out – for the better or worse – had a full-strength team gone to Buenos Aires, what we do know is that the Lions did the same thing this season.
Only, it was round three last week, but the outcome of Ackermann sending a weakened side to Argentina was the same – the Lions lost.
Just over a year ago, the first-choice team, being rested and fresh, hit back in style. Ackermann will now expect the same of this season’s Lions team when they come up against the Reds at Ellis Park on Saturday.
The only player in doubt for the match is prop Dylan Smith (shoulder), who’ll be assessed in the coming days, while flank Cyle Brink has been ruled out of action, also because of a shoulder problem, but he would possibly not have made the matchday squad anyway.
For the rest, the Lions are healthy and well – just what Ackermann would have wished for ahead of this weekend’s match and the rest of the competition.
The decision to “give up” the match in Buenos Aires will be forgiven somewhat if the Lions hammer the Reds this weekend and produce quality showings down the line. But, only if that is what transpires; if it doesn’t, then Ackermann may again, later on, find himself having to answer questions about his selections for the Jaguares trip.
For now he’ll be happy to have a fit and rested team at his disposal, and that means Elton Jantjies, Rohan Janse van Rensburg, Lionel Mapoe and Franco Mostert will all potentially return to the starting team.
Also, replacements last weekend like Ruan Dreyer, Jacques van Rooyen, Malcolm Marx, Jaco Kriel and Faf de Klerk, while Ruan Ackermann, who wasn’t even in the matchday squad, will all return hungry for action.
Perhaps Ackermann knows exactly what he is doing. He’ll want his team to find some momentum against the Reds on Saturday and against the Kings next week before the Lions take on the Sharks on 1 April.
Meanwhile, Reds coach Nick Stiles is keen to see his side cause a few upsets in the coming weeks. After their match with the Lions, the Reds head to Buenos Aires for a date with the Jaguares.
In other news, centre William Small-Smith has joined his Cheetahs teammates for their match against the Jaguares in Buenos Aires this weekend. Small-Smith, pictured, broke his hand in a pre-season game and has yet to play for the Cheetahs. Another midfielder, Michael van der Spuy, is also in the tour party, as is Carl Wegner. Raymond Rhule (knee), however, as well as Ox Nche have stayed behind. WITH respect to Super Rugby, the game of the weekend is going to be in Dublin where an Ireland team incandescent with passion will “host” an England team they dislike with, well, a passion!
According to newspaper reports from Ireland and the UK, the Aviva Stadium sold out for this fixture months ago and black market touts can command just about any price for tickets to one of the most eagerly anticipated matches in the northern hemisphere for some years.
England are tied with New Zealand on 18 wins, the record for tier-one nations, and in their path of breaking the world record is the same Ireland team that last year halted the All Blacks’ winning streak with an ambush in Chicago, of all places. Al Capone himself would have appreciated how Ireland snuck up out of nowhere and emptied their guns into a New Zealand team that did not see it coming.
Can Ireland replicate the ultimate rugby party-pooping act two years in a row, and stop Eddie Jones’ free-wheeling England team in their tracks?
The manner in which they demolished Scotland 61-21 at Twickenham last week was something to behold. It was the best Scotland team to travel south of the border for many a year, and Highland hearts believed the English could be put to the sword in true Braveheart fashion.
Sadly for the Scots, despite their “economic” vote to remain part of the UK two years ago, they were as ruthlessly dispatched as Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Scottish army was at Culloden Moor in 1746.
Scotland was incorporated into England and the Scots have been miffed ever since.
Ireland have as much “history” with the English, the difference being that their Easter Uprising in Dublin in 1917 culminated in their independence.
Suffice to say, the Irish this week would love nothing more than to do what Scotland could not do last week.
I phoned my Irish mate living in Durban, Harry Monks, the musician who was half of the popular duo The Leprechauns and asked him, as a Dubliner, what the atmosphere will be like in Dublin.
“Bejeezers the black stuff