Lions wary of URC strugglers Cardiff

The last time Cardiff won a game in the United Rugby Championship, Santa was still covered in chimney dust.

Cardiff beat the breathless Dragons in a Boxing Day dust-up and on Saturday they meet a team in red, though one with no reason to be endowed with the Christmas spirit.

The Lions are still in the — albeit a long shot — hunt for a place in the top eight and they urgently need to show more claws than Claus against Cardiff at Ellis Park (6.15pm).

Cardiff have suffered nine consecutive defeats in all competitions, but as Lions' assistant coach Barend Pieterse was keen to point out, some of those defeats were close.

Five of those defeats came by six points or less leaving Pieterse wary, publicly anyway. “They were unlucky in one or two of those games. They are a good team,” Pieterse reached for the platitudes.

He was keen to point out that Cardiff is likely to draw inspiration from the way Munster dismantled the Lions in their last match.

The street-smart defending champions beat the Lions to the punch in every sense and they even dictated the pace of the game when they didn't have the ball. Playing at a quick tempo at altitude serves the Lions' interests, but they were not allowed to give their opponents the hurry-up.

“We knew they'd do it,” admitted Pieterse. “We spoke to the refs beforehand and they said they'd deal with it. But it is a difficult situation because if someone is sitting down you can't just keep on playing. We will speak to the referee. They will obviously try to copy and paste what Munster did.”

Pieterse said the Lions will endeavour to speed things up on their ball on Saturday but before then they'll escalate their concerns higher up the referee's food chain. “We'll speak to the head of refs.”

While Pieterse expects Cardiff to try to mimic some of what Munster mustered, he highlighted a few things from their blueprint.

“Cardiff don't mind defending 24, 25 passes. They don't just kick out. Whereas Munster would kick high and contest, Cardiff kick long and try to pin you there.

“If you kick back, they'll kick back. They don't mind playing without the ball. They have a good defensive record.”

Irrespective of what Cardiff throws at them, the Lions need improvement in several areas.

“We have to be better at breakdown and set piece. Munster disrupted us. All credit to them. I know we played against international players, but that is no excuse,” Pieterse said.

He believes the Lions are still in the hunt for a spot in the top eight and needs no reminding they have to win their three remaining league matches.

“We are. Obviously the points are really close. Obviously we didn't do ourselves a favour against Munster. All we can do is keep on winning and hopefully some of the other results will go our way.

“We have to focus on this weekend's game and try to get as many points as we can. And then the next week, and the next week.

“The top eight dream for us is still alive. That is something we talk about every day and we train for every day.”

If they are going to qualify they will have to put their capricious form behind them. The Lions' 'good game, bad game' routine is becoming tiresome, even for the coaches.

“We talk about it all the time,” Pieterse sighed. “We are up and down. That's been our season. Good game, bad game.

“If you had four good games then a bad one, that would make sense. It is not a lack of preparation. Maybe it's complacency after we've had a good game?”