For the Lions, the challenge of Edinburgh is redemption. They get to erase the humiliation of a shutout against the Glasgow Warriors a week ago.
Edinburgh are a familiar foe from the Vodacom United Rugby Championship, but on Friday night it is a case of same face, different competition. This is no league match. This is play-off rugby in the EPCR Challenge Cup, a last 16 round and the chance to bury the result of a week ago.
The joke doing the rounds last weekend was that the Lions were lucky to have zero at half time, such was the influence of playing into such a howler in Glasgow.
But few Lions fans were joking when their team could not add to that zero playing with the howler at their backs.
The failure to score a point with such second half weather conditions was more damning than conceding 42 points in a first half that lasted 42 minutes.
Lions coach Ivan ‘Cash’ van Rooyen credited the Warriors more than he condemned his own team. Hopefully that was just media talk and privately there was more honesty about a first-half display that betrayed everything the Lions had built this season in the URC.
Knockout rugby is a different beast to playing for league points. Desperation becomes that extra player and the Lions must be the more desperate of the two teams, given the contrasting fortunes of their loss and Edinburgh’s comfortable win in the URC.
The Lions won’t fear Edinburgh. Earlier this season, playing at home, they led the Scottish-based club 48-0 at halftime in Johannesburg. It was an opening half as surreal as the one Glasgow produced against the Lions last week.
Both teams are fighting for a Top Eight URC finish, but with the league on hold for the next fortnight, the priority for the South African teams is the Challenge Cup. There will be an envious eye on the premier title, the Investec Champions Cup, for which none of the Sharks, Stormers or Bulls made it to the last 16.
The Lions have played in the Challenge Cup pool rounds from the outset this season, having not qualified for the Champions Cup competition, but the two competition structures allow for a ‘lucky loser’ type system for a handful of teams who finished outside the Top 16 in the Champions Cup rounds. This is calculated on league points gained and these teams, like the Sharks and Bulls, join those Challenge Cup pool qualifiers for the play-offs.
The Sharks, who endured a woeful URC last season, used the Challenge Cup to reignite their season and, by winning the title, they entered the Champions Cup competition for the 2024/25 season. They had initially missed out because of a failure to finish in the Top Eight of the URC.
This season the Sharks are fourth in the URC and guaranteed a Top Eight finish and automatic entry into the Champions Cup, so they may not have that desperation when they play at Lyon this weekend. Their focus could be on ensuring they finish Top Four in the URC and get a home quarter final.
These are the complexities of playing in two knockout competitions that operate parallel to the URC, as is the case for South Africa’s four URC clubs.
The Lions won’t fear Edinburgh. Earlier this season, playing at home, they led the Scottish-based club 48-0 at halftime in Johannesburg. It was an opening half as surreal as the one Glasgow produced against the Lions last week.
The question is how much mental scarring from the 42-0?
Van Rooyen believes none, other than a lot of hurt for those players who must live with the result before the next match.
Fortunately for the Lions that next match is on Friday evening.
The Bulls will play Bayonne in France, with the hosts unbeaten in 12 matches in all competitions this season. They have beaten Toulouse, Bordeaux and Toulon at home in the Top 14 this season. The trio lead the Top 14 with Bayonne in fourth place.
Defending Challenge Cup champions, the Sharks, are away to Lyon.
If both South African teams take their best squads up north this weekend, they will win. If not, they will take a beating.
* For those who may be asking, the Stormers finished last in their Champions Cup pool and did not qualify for the Challenge Cup as one of the ‘lucky losers’
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