The Lions are hoping a strong set piece will give them a chance of upsetting the in-form Glasgow Warriors.
The Lions will be hoping their set piece, particularly their scrums, lineouts and mauls will fire on all cylinders and give them a chance of upsetting Glasgow Warriors in their URC match on Friday night. Picture: Sydney Seshibedi/Gallo Images
The Lions are hoping to improve their lineout performance to assist them in gaining set piece dominance when they take on Glasgow Warriors in their United Rugby Championship (URC) clash in Scotland on Friday night (9.45pm).
In their heavy 31-10 loss against Edinburgh over the past weekend the Lions scrum was in good form, largely getting the better of the hosts, but their lineout misfired badly, which saw them miss out on a number of attacking opportunities and struggle on their defensive throw.
With them facing another tough challenge against a high-flying Scottish team, the Lions need their set piece to be firing on all cylinders, if they are to have any chance of picking up what would be an upset win.
“We want to create set-piece pressure, and that’s obviously through lineouts, mauling and scrums. Sometimes it doesn’t work, or a certain aspect of it doesn’t work, and that’s just how rugby is,” explained Lions assistant coach Wessel Roux on Tuesday.
“If I look back at when we played the All Blacks (in Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry), we had a 100% success rate from a lineout perspective. Against the Bulls, we scored two maul tries, so it has been working.
“So we’re trying to get to that place where the pack as a whole is functioning and putting pressure on the opposition.”
Perfect storm
Zooming in specifically on the lineouts, Roux said it seemed to be a perfect storm that contributed to their struggles against the table topping Edinburgh, and they hoped to sort those problems out by the time they face Glasgow.
“The lineouts were a problem at times. In our review, we said to each other that it was almost like the perfect storm, with a lot of things going wrong at the same time. The weather was difficult, with the wind and rain, but that’s not an excuse. The opposition played in the same conditions,” said Roux.
“We just had a combination of calls that were communicated incorrectly. Once or twice we made the wrong call, so there was a communication issue between the players and the hooker, which is something we’ve worked on.
“And at certain times Edinburgh were just really good. Sometimes you make a call and the opposition goes up in exactly that spot. So it was just a combination of a few things, but we’ve spoken about it and found solutions.”
The Lions will head home for the November break after their game on Friday night.
