Lions will roar only when they regain self-belief

DURING a stoppage in play in the Lions’ clash with the Hurricanes in Wellington, the catchy tune and lyrics of Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing were played over the stadium’s sound system and transmitted to TV sets across the globe.

This was apt and ironic for the Lions because at the time they were down 14-0 and half time was approaching.

The Lions had been pretty much shut out of the game at that point and needed something.

Clearly, they did have some belief, for within a few minutes of that moment their scrumhalf, Nic Groom, crossed for a try.

It brought the Lions back into the game as they went to the break with just a seven-point deficit.

Being so close after having been dominated for most of the half would have flooded some more belief into the players’ systems at half time.

Hope, though, can be tantalising, and the Hurricanes extinguished it in the third quarter.

The million-dollar question is: do the Lions have the belief that they can go a step further than previous years and win the competition?

Take away belief and you have a carriage but no horse to pull it.

The late Lions rally in Wellington – which made the final difference between the two just nine points – was a case of too little too late and in a sense summed up their Super Rugby challenge over the past three years: so near and yet so far.

It is because they have been beaten finalists twice and been so close to touching the Holy Grail that belief is going to have to be such a strong element of their campaign over the next few weeks.

After suffering five defeats in 11 starts, it appears they will have to do it the hard way.

It means they will have to travel away for a final if they get that far.

That will be a big mountain for them to climb assuming, of course, that they win the local conference, which is no longer the certainty it appeared to be just two weeks ago.

When they whitewashed the Waratahs in Sydney, the Lions showed they could win away, but beating a New Zealand team in New Zealand is an entirely different proposition.

Their most likely opponents in a final will be the Hurricanes or the Crusaders.

The Hurricanes haven’t lost at home to a South African team since the Stormers beat them in 2013, and their loss to the Sharks in a freaky game in 2014 (the Sharks played much of it with 14 men) is the only blemish for the Crusaders in a two-decade domination of SA teams in Christchurch.

If we decide that because the Blues appear to be perennially troubled we should not rank them among the proper Kiwi contenders, then it has been another bleak year for SA in New Zealand.

The Sharks brought some relief with an unexpectedly comfortable home win over the Highlanders.

But the failure of the South African flag-bearer in the competition to beat a New Zealand side home or away is a concern from a national viewpoint.

The Lions will get a chance for redress when they play the Highlanders in Dunedin in their final tour match, but need to sort out some issues.

The forwards too often lack the energy – and what some might refer to as anger – that they had in previous seasons and tend to drift in and out of games.

They are not riding the crest of the wave as they did in previous seasons and with some key leadership figures missing – and now it looks like they will be missing Malcolm Marx too – you have to wonder whether they have the same hunger and belief that they had before.

The Lions back row may just be too small. They may lack the big gainlinebreaking traditional South African No 7 that could make all the difference.

Allied to that, they also need to rediscover the game clarity that was a hallmark of their wins over the Stormers and Waratahs but has been absent subsequently.

They are still second on the overall log, so they have time to recover, work on their confidence and build belief.

One thing we can be sure of is that without belief, the best the Lions will achieve is being the nearly men once again.