Lions ready for Racing 92’s game

As the Lions brace for a Challenge Cup round of 16 encounter against French side Racing 92 on Saturday at Ellis Park (6.30pm), their backline coach Ricardo Loubscher says they will play to their strengths.

Teams often change their style of play in knockout games, which can work or go south. The Lions are playing their biggest game since moving to the northern hemisphere competitions.

They take on one of Europe’s traditional big teams Racing, who have two players from SA in their ranks, Trevor Nyakane and Warrick Gelant. They are expecting Springbok captain Siya Kolisi to join them after the Rugby World Cup. Loubscher, who has coached in France at Stade Francais, expects Racing

to play as they did against the France national team. “If you look at the way the French team plays, you can see that style is filtering down to the clubs,” said Loubscher on Wednesday.

“From our point of view, we are going to focus on ourselves but we know they are a dangerous side. We are expecting the unexpected, so we need to prepare for a massive kicking game and prepare for a team that’s willing to run from their own 22.

It’s hard to prepare for that but we have to prepare for the running and kicking game,” he said.

Knowing what Racing will bring to the table, the Lions will not change their way of play, they will look to impose their strengths at Ellis Park.

“You want to play to your strengths, the biggest mistake is when you get a playoff game and try to change and go away from your strength. We are going to stick to what worked for us in the last few games,” said the former Springbok.

“The big thing for us is to take that one step forward in terms of how we want to play. We have to make sure we force our strengths on them. We know they’re a team that’s off the cuff. They can create something out of nothing. Defensively, we have to make sure we handle that.”