Johan Ackermann
Emirates Lions coach Johan Ackermann has refused to try and reign his players in, continuing to back them despite their frustrating Vodacom Super Rugby loss to the Hurricanes at Emirates Airline Park on Friday night.
Ackermann has defended his team’s inability to score despite dominating every facet of play except the scoreboard, saying the execution and decision-making needs to improve, not the game plan.
The coach staunchly defended his team’s expansive approach and feels they simply need to hone their play better to get the right results.
“Our attack worked for us, the execution let us down,” Ackermann said.
“The decisions on the field were not always right. The player must trust his instinct and his gut, we don’t want to box our players in and people have to live with that. We are not going to box our players in, we want to give them the freedom to play.
“As long as it is clear, when we coach them we say to them this is the criteria we want, and they must execute well. The player cannot just throw the ball backwards and hope there is somebody, they must see somebody to pass the ball to. Those decisions we can’t take for them, they must make them. Perhaps there were one or two passes and handling that wasn’t good enough, but it worked for us.
“This team loves to play the game and we just need to get better on that. We can’t go through five, six, seven games and only start playing at the end of the season, we have to get better and start winning now.”
Ackermann said the team had taken note of what worked and what didn’t and was planning to rectify things this week before they faced the Cell C Sharks in Durban.
“It showed the areas we have to work on. I think it is difficult to call it rustiness because I don’t think that is the reason we lost. If you look at the stats, it feels like a repeat of the Currie Cup final where you do all the work and dominate all the play, and you don’t take your points. When we backed ourselves in the drive, or when we kicked at posts, we didn’t take our points.
Opportunities to get more tries were there but then we had a little turnover in the ruck, or a passing error behind a player’s back. It was in our hands and the guys could have finished the game, we could have won the game but we didn’t.
“If you look at the first half, we played all the rugby and they could have been given a yellow card, but they weren’t. We played all the rugby in their half and in the two times they got out of their half they scored. That I believe has nothing to do with rustiness, those are simply errors.”
The Lions will name their team for Saturday’s match on Thursday.
Robbie Coetzee
Julian Redelinhuys
The Emirates Lions will welcome back Springbok hooker Robbie Coetzee, who returned to training on Monday from a neck injury.
The boost, which coincides with the return for Julian Redelinghuys and a clean bill of health following the loss to the Hurricanes will be a welcome relief for the Lions ahead of their Vodacom Super Rugby game against the Cell C Sharks in Durban on Saturday.
The only injury concern currently is lock MB Lusaseni, who is still recovering from a knee injury.
Coetzee returned home early from the Bok tour last year with the neck injury, had surgery and has been out of action since then.
But with Malcolm Marx’s fine display up front, Lions coach Johan Ackermann may decide not to use him just yet, and allow him to ease back into action.
Meanwhile captain Warren Whiteley believes his team will “bounce back” from their frustrating defeat at the hands of the Hurricanes.
The Lions dominated every facet of the game but were soundly beaten on the scoreboard, with Whiteley refusing to lament his decisions not to kick at goal on a night where the Lions were struggling with their place kicks.
“We just didn’t convert pressure into points. We had ample opportunities, they were struggling to stop our drives, they were on their last warning. We backed our lineout and they turned us over, so we didn’t convert. I think that is the most frustrating thing, is that we had opportunities and we worked so hard to get into that gold zone, and we couldn’t get the points,” Whiteley said in reference to chasing the tries rather than points through the boot.
The Lions need more patience, Whiteley believes, saying he knows this team is better than the one that was in last year’s competition. The time is now for the side to prove it.
“We worked so hard to get into that gold zone, that’s what we need to work on – the patience within that area, within the 22,” Whiteley explains.
“We worked so hard to get there and its almost as if we lose patience, and try to play a more expansive game where in that area you simply have to be more direct. You need to cut your losses and be direct. There are some encouraging signs for us though, some guys who haven’t played Super Rugby who did well and some guys who didn’t get opportunities that are putting pressure on the other guys.
“We have to bounce back, I know this team is better than we were last year. I know it in my heart.
“There are a lot of positives and we will bounce back, we will.”
SuperSport
It was an extremely frustrating game to watch. When wave after wave of attack ends in turnovers due to handling errors, decision making or penalties, it is very very frustrating.
@ Lion4ever:
Next 2 games will determine the success or failure of this years SR campaign for Ja and the Lions.
I certainly hope they pitch up for the game at Kings Park next week. If they don’t……………
If they go on tour winless, irrespective of ANY positives that JA and the Lions may see, the Rugby world will just write off 2014’s campaign as a flash in the pan, and (possibly rightly so) dismiss the Lions as cannon fodder as they did from 2003 – 2013.
@ Scrumdown:
True. But better decision making and better kicking all round, and we could play far better against the Sharks than we did against the ‘Canes. The little the guys did kick out of hand, it was woeful, and place kicking, the less said the better.
The Lions can be a very dangerous side…..if they start applying some grey matter from the kick off.
What worked well and looked pretty in the CC won’t do in SR.
Although we SAFFA supporters lament the way most of our teams play, it is more effective than employing the NZ game plan.
The Lions tried their hand against a NZ opponent, that makes sense because we know they also like to have a go, but I’m not sure it will work against teams that play the percentages.
It’s no use having a superior scrum, but end up losing the game. If I was a Lion front row player I would PK every single back from 9-15. They lost the CC final after totally stuffing up the WP scrum and they did precisely the same again on Saturday, yet according to the coach they have license to do the same again?
The Stormers showed that you can get a win against the odds by employing a “finals” type mindset. Do your basics, play for position, take your kicks at goal, keep the pressure on the opposition and once you have built up a lead make the other team chase the game.
You don’t want to chase the game against a NZ team, especially with their potent backlines. You will cough up possession at one stage and then it’s tickets if their counter is effective.
I’m sceptic of this mindset of “we want to play fancy running rugby because thats what the supporters want to see”
The supporters want their side to win, and if you win ugly they will be more happy than seeing you lose ugly
@ nortie:
For me attractive rugby is winning rugby. I have often said I would prefer an ugly win to a pretty loss. I didn’t get to watch any of the 6N this weekend, but when I look at the way England and Wales played in their opening 30 minutes against each other, it was great rugby. Each team played the percentages, with intelligent probing kicks and hard physical defence, and some good running rugby.
As a Lions supporter I love that the Lions want to run the ball, but if the opposition employs a rush defence, your no 9 and 10 have to turn them around with deft little kicks into space, up and unders as well playing for territory by kicking the ball out in the corners. The Lions kickers failed in that respect. The fact that the Lions lost momentum due to turning the ball over at critical times cost them the game. There were 2 or 3 try scoring opportunities in the first half that the Lions spilled. Add to that all the kicks at goal that went astray, the outcome could have been very different. The ‘Canes used their opportunities and the Lions didn’t.
You have to earn the right to go wide.
Also, it is becoming ever more apparent that the team who makes the most tackles often wins the game. Stormers v Bulls is a classic case in point.
The key as, Kenny said, is to “know when to hold them, know when to fold them…”
5 @ Lion4ever:
The Lions physicality was there, the intensity was there… they started the game like a house on fire.
They controlled territory and possession.
Wish I could say that the Bulls physicality was there and that their intensity was good… but I cannot!
All that caused the Lions to lose was their naivity, bad tactical employment and a sterling resolve by the Hurricanes.
All in all there are so many positives the Lions can look at after the game and their errors are more easily definable than the overall blob of shit that the Bulls dished up as a season starter.
At least the Lions scrums are solid… and at least they have a direct vision they are aspiring towards!
At the Bulls, there is no scrumming, no dedication, no heart, no passion, no headstrong resolve.. they are just going through the motions.. with no plan whatsoever.
Must be the easiest team to devise a game plan and variations against.. these sloppy Bulls! They are totally predictable!
grootblousmile wrote:
I don’t the Bulls were as bad as people are making out, nor were the Stormers that good.
At one point the Bulls were controlling the game well, Steggman was dominating the turnovers at ruck time, Pollard was doing well at pivot.
How many kicks did Pollard miss? half way during the second half the Bulls were 3 points behind he Stormers, in spite of all the errors and missed kicks.
One or two turnaround moments defined the game, had the ball bounced differently us Stormers would be lamenting another crap start to the season, missed opportunities, a one dimensional game plan, lack of depth, you name it.
As it is we need to do a lot of improving if we are to have a successful season.
The Bulls will get better, they always do.
PS JJ needs to play wing and Kriel 13. Jrgen needs to play a different sport, there has to be a young promising 15 coming through the U21 side that won the Currie Cup last year? (the only trophy the WP didn’t win that day) 😀
8 @ Stormersboy:
Farkit brother, from a Bulls perspective, it was the same old, same old!
Scrums have actually gone wayyyyyyyy backwards.
Bulls looked good against Saracens because the intensity seemed to be there at the breakdowns and groundball areas… but when Spies replaced Hanro Liebenberg that already fell away in the Saracens game.
Hougaard actually looked good at scrummie in the Sarries game.
Piet van Zyl… well, he’s a huge disappointment for me too.
JJ Engelbrecht is just pure crap at outside centre and Jurgen Visser is diabollically rubish!
Bulls need hard-scrumming locks too, to help alleviate the scrumming woes and the Bulls need to chuck Werner Kruger in the nearest deep dam, with concrete feet!
But more than anything, the Bulls need some heart and passion… that seems ALL GONE, farked off with the many players they lost in the last 4 seasons.
It is absolutely correct what a few chaps are saying that Frans Ludeke has slowly but surely reduced the Bulls to the kak he left the Lions for, years ago.
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