Lions - from zeroes to heroes
Rugby writer Jacques van der Westhuyzen looks at the remarkable turnaround in the Lions’ Super Rugby fortunes.
|||Use whatever word you want - unbelievable, astonishing, wonderful, fantastic, jaw-dropping.
The fact the Lions are in the Super Rugby final is everything described above. No-one, in their wildest dreams, would have imagined this team would be one win away from being crowned champions.
Not when three years ago they were playing a string of friendly matches in preparation for the promotion-relegation matches against the Kings. I was one of their fiercest critics ... I just could not understand how a union as mighty as the Lions, couldn’t win a Super Rugby game, couldn’t hang onto their players and couldn’t make ends meet.
Now I am just as perplexed as to the reasons behind them turning things around so quickly. I simply cannot put my finger on why the players have all of a sudden become superstars, that the team have become virtually unbeatable ... it is a quite remarkable story and turn-around in fortunes.
Think of the players, men like Ruan Combrinck, Courtnall Skosan, Rohan Janse van Rensburg, Howard Mnisi, Faf de Klerk, Warren Whiteley, Franco Mostert ... and others, who were rejected by other unions. They weren’t considered good enough, they weren’t wanted ... they joined the Lions and became Springboks. Or, will become Springboks in future.
Think of the coaches: Johan Ackermann, Swys de Bruin and JP Ferreira; who are they really in coaching circles? Ackermann was still playing rugby not so long ago and was an assistant to John Mitchell, but he was never surely going to be a head coach? But look at him now ... the envy of every other coach in the competition, the man with the magic touch.
De Bruin did a bit with some Sharks juniors, now he’s being chased by every union in the country. And Ferreira, hardly anyone knew about him until this year, now he’s considered one of the leading defensive coaches in the country.
The Lions, down and out, could easily have replaced Mitchell with another international coach, but they stuck with local men, and in Ackermann someone who’d achieved nothing and was a nobody in coaching terms, and now he’s this country’s leading mentor.
This Lions have grown and grown, the brand of rugby the’ve played has been out of this world and they’ve beaten teams considered far better and stronger than them. They’ve not only won against the best, teams like the Chiefs, Bulls, Stormers, Crusaders, Highlanders, Sharks ... they’ve at times smashed them. They put 40 points past the Blues, Crusaders and Highlanders and 50 past the Bulls, Jaguares and Kings. They’ve scored more tries in the competition than any other team, more than the so-called attack-minded and hugely entertaining New Zealand teams.
They have one more game in front of them ... the final, away from home against a Hurricanes team that will be desperate to make up for last year’s loss to the Highlanders.
It won’ t be easy for Ackermann and his men, but then, has anything come easy for this Lions team? Who’d bet against them coming out tops, one more time? - The Star