Edinburgh running scared of ‘expansive’ Lions

Edinburgh are hoping to nullify the Lions’ expansive gameplan at Ellis Park on Saturday in a bid to add another notch to their belts in South Africa, writes DEVIN HERMANUS.

Flyhalf Blair Kinghorn crossed for two tries as the Scottish side punished a sloppy Sharks performance 21-5 in torrential rain at Kings Park on Saturday.

The Lions, though, ran seven tries past the Ospreys in Friday’s 45-15 win in Johannesburg, courtesy of a cavalier attack underwritten by a pack working tirelessly off the ball, and lethal finishing from their outside backs.

Ivan van Rooyen’s men are ninth in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship for attacking play, and speaking ahead of Saturday’s URC clash, Edinburgh coach Mike Blair said: “We’re wary of the Lions’ transition attack, so we can’t give away loose balls, or be giving too much space to the outside backs.

“Also, we’ll be watching for the danger in and around the set pieces; I thought we handled the Sharks scrum last week, so we’re confident we can do that.”

Loose forward Ben Muncaster added: “It’ll be a polar opposite to the Sharks game; the Lions are extremely physical but are full of running and a bit more expansive.

“When they played the Ospreys there was a lot of ball in play … they have one of the most offloads in the URC, so we are going to try and stop that, by fronting up physically and managing that.”

Blair says his players have also made every effort this week to acclimatise to the heat and altitude on the highveld, an achilles heel for most of the European teams in SA.

“The conditions are definitely different from Durban but I don’t want to use that as an excuse, it’s just something we’re aware of,” the Edinburgh boss said. “We will get sweaty but the guys have been handling the conditions at training.

“We don’t want the win over the Sharks to be a once-off and we’re focused on backing up that performance if we want to be unbeaten in SA.”

ALSO READ: Loubscher weaned the Lions off ‘cappuccino’

The post Edinburgh running scared of ‘expansive’ Lions appeared first on SA Rugby magazine.

The post Edinburgh running scared of ‘expansive’ Lions appeared first on Rugby Daily News.



source https://rugbystream.us/edinburgh-running-scared-of-expansive-lions/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Canada will host the World Juniors 2021

For the 14th time, Canada will host the  World Juniors live stream  . The next edition which is the 45th edition is to hold on December 26th, 2020 after it was shifted from the original date because of the COVID 19 pandemic. The gold medal game which will be the climax of this edition is to hold on January 5, 2021. IIHF announced that the  2021 world juniors  which were shifted because of the pandemic will still take place on the Edmonton bubble but it is going to be on a different day. The format for that will remain but there could be more restrictions because of the pandemic. This edition is going to take place without fans. It was originally meant for Edmonton and Red Deer hosting; this will no longer hold that way. Only Edmonton will host it while the edition of 2022 will be cohosted by Edmonton and Red Deer. It will hold under the bubble scenario of Edmonton. The decision to go on with the competition without fans is for the good of the players, this is to prevent them from conta
Read more

SA-born prop caught up in eligibility ‘breach’ probe

Image
World Rugby has opened a probe into a “potential breach” by Spain of eligibility rules during their successful qualification for next year’s World Cup, with the player being investigated originally from South Africa. According to Spanish media, the player under investigation is South African-born prop Gavin van den Berg, who has been playing in Spain since 2018. He played twice against the Netherlands (2020, 2021) in qualifiers, but he may not seemingly have served the three years of residency needed to become eligible under World Rugby rules. Spain beat Portugal 33-28 in Madrid earlier this month to become the 16th team to qualify for the 2023 Rugby World Cup in France. The victory meant they were assured of second place in the group. Georgia, who had already booked their place in France, top the pool. That place, however, could be under threat for Spain as World Rugby said it would “convene an independent judicial committee to examine a potential breach … by the Spanish Rugby Un
Read more

Waisake Naholo will attempt to earn a contract with the Crusaders

Image
Former All Blacks wing Waisake Naholo will attempt to earn a contract with the Crusaders after joining the team’s pre-season training for Super Rugby Pacific. Naholo has reportedly been brought into the Crusaders’ pre-season for the 2022 season, joining his younger brother and fellow wing Kini at the club. The 30-year-old returned to New Zealand last year after an injury-plagued stint with London Irish in the English Premiership. Naholo tried to earn a Super Rugby contract by turning out for Canterbury during last year’s NPC campaign, but there were no takers. However, the Crusaders have decided to give Naholo an opportunity as the club is not expecting their All Blacks to return until February. Naholo played 62 games for the Highlanders between 2015 and 2019,  helping the club win their first Super Rugby title in 2015, when he finished as the season’s top try-scorer with 13 tries. He made his Test debut for the All Blacks in 2015 and earned 27 Test caps, scoring 16 tries and p
Read more