Lions surprise with choice for Kimberley

The Xerox Golden Lions sprung a surprise, added a bit of maturity and included a Springbok in their line-up for the showdown with Griqualand West in Kimberley on Saturday.

Possibly the most interesting selection is that of Duncan Matthews, the former Blue Bulls winger, at inside centre for the clash, which the Lions need to win to cement their playoff spot and perhaps even a home semifinal.

Matthews joined the Lions a few weeks ago after being released by the Bulls and now will line-up at inside centre for the clash in what is a very surprising move in every sense as Matthews has played almost all of his senior rugby at wing.

Add to that the return of stalwart Cyle Brink from injury and Marvin Orie’s return from the Springboks and the Lions are hoping a bit “more maturity” in the side will aid them well this coming weekend.

Former Bok captain Warren Whiteley, still injured and on the sidelines is helping with coaching and while he praised Griquas’ stellar run under Brent Janse van Rensburg, he believes the Lions curve is looking upwards.

“It is a big one, Griquas have been phenomenal throughout the competition. We’ve seen that under Brent, he is a great coach and very rigid in his structures and they are a team that are playing for each other.

“They are a team that play for each other and I know how it feels to play in a side like that. It’s not going to be easy travelling up there. We have done some good things this year.

“The last two games have been challenging but we have learnt some lessons. The youngsters are improving, they’re getting better. Guys are developing. We are probably missing one or two senior players. It’s nice to have some senior players training with us this week. We’ve had Cyle Brink coming back, Dylan (Smith) and that has helped Ross over the past few days.

“We have probably lacked a bit of maturity the last few weeks and hopefully those guys training this week have already brought that maturity and calmness to the side.”

Whiteley said the team had made some changes and it paid off in their performance – if not the result – against the Sharks.

“Barring last week. We started that first half and the second as well. But the trend has been that we haven’t started well. We’ve changed things up in our preparation and the previous game it seems to have worked for us, even though we didn’t get the result.

“We definitely feel we performed better this last weekend than the weekend before, if you look at our performance, and not the result. In our performance there was some good things. We really want to take that into this week and we have started this week well.

“The early travel will also help us settle in. We try and give ourselves the best chance, chasing those one-percentres and giving ourselves the chance to perform on Saturday. It will be close.

*Jamba Ulengo, who signed a two year deal with the Lions, is on the bench and might get his first run in the red and white.

Xerox Golden Lions: Tyrone Green; Madosh Tambwe, Wandisile Simelane, Duncan Matthews, Stean Pienaar; Shaun Reynolds, Ross Cronje ©; Hacjivah Dayimani, Cyle Brink, Marnus Schoeman, Marvin Orie, Ruben Schoeman, Jacobie Adriaanse, Pieter Jansen, Sti Sithole.

Reserves: Jan-Henning Campher, Dylan Smith, Johannes Jonker, Wilhelm van der Sluys, Len Massyn, Dillon Smit, Jan-Louis la Grange, Jamba Ulengo