The Lions will be looking to take all their learning from their tough European tour into the final game of their four-week tour when they face Connacht in a United Rugby Championship (URC) clash at the Sportsground in Galway on Saturday night (kick-off 9). : 35 pm).
The Lions tour began with a heavy URC defeat against Munster in Ireland, before heading to Paris where they lost a Challenge Cup match against Stade Francais.
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They then traveled to Wales where they took on the Dragons, also in the Challenge Cup, and came away with a tight 30-25 victory that snapped a four game losing streak.
They have faced tough conditions in every game so far and expect more of the same against Connacht in Galway, but will go into the match confident on the back of a win.
“I think we can all agree that playing in these conditions is like playing Test rugby. You have to take chances, you have to keep the scoreboard and put pressure on the scoreboard against the opposition,” explained Lions assistant coach Jaque Fourie.
“It is then very important to play in the right area of the field. It is not easy. Some games have been played where the wind is 30km/h, so you can hardly kick the ball into the wind, which means you have to keep the ball in a long phase and run out of half.
“These are unusual things, but we have to get used to them, and I think the sooner we can adapt to these things, the better for the South African team.”
Focus on Connacht
Having lost their last three URC matches, the Lions have dropped down the table from the play-off places to 12th.Th position, but Fourie claims the team is not focused on as full focus on the Connacht game.
“At this stage we are not too worried about where we are in the table. There are still seven games left in the URC for us and these are tough games. We have Leinster, Benetton, Sharks and Bulls,” said Fourie.
“We are taking it game-by-game and our focus is on Connacht. For us, this is a very important game because I think if we can pull it off this weekend, the URC campaign will be back on track.
“Then we’ll take it from there. We’ll reevaluate when we get home, hit the reset button and play again the next few games.