These are the reasons why I believe the Lions COULD stay right up among the hottest contenders for the Super Rugby 2019 title:

Been there, (so nearly) done that

A lot of neutral Super Rugby-watchers will be egging on the Lions to achieve that really “feel good” story: overall trophy success after three instances in a row from 2016 to 2018 of being pipped at the post (or read: in the final).

While there may be a similarly well-stocked lobby harbouring a suspicion that their best chance may now have gone, especially with some torpedo-to-the-hull departures of stalwarts to other pastures, it might just be premature to suggest they are going to go noticeably backwards in 2019.

They still possess the fulcrum, let’s not forget - and it includes some exciting, fast-maturing youngsters - of the personnel who have driven their charge over the past handful of seasons.

Winning games rather more often than tasting defeat has become cultural, if you like, at Emirates Airline Park, and you can’t just buy that habit with the bread at the corner store.

A lot of their existing squad members have already shown that they have the required perseverance, determination and durability to prosper right up to - and then just as often through - the knockout phase.

Squad spirit

Not unrelated to that last paragraph, the Johannesburg-based outfit have also looked the happiest, most harmonious and generally “driven” of all South African sides over the last few campaigns.

Evidence from last season suggests that the level of spirit first generated during Johan Ackermann's tenure in charge has been largely undimmed since Swys de Bruin's elevation to head coach.

Throw in the fact that they possess a renowned “people person” and sound motivator and inspirer as captain in Warren Whiteley - this will be his ninth Lions season in Super Rugby and sixth as skipper - and there is little reason to anticipate any dressing-room disharmony in 2019.

Several experienced players moving on hardly seems constructive ... but is there just the chance that the need for refreshment and younger legs in certain positions may give the Lions dangerous new, and more “secret” dimensions in certain senses? 

Some shrewd acquisitions

The inconvenient exodus of some previously core players will naturally be discussed in the second instalment of this spotlight on the Lions, but give their administrators some due: they have snapped up a couple of players who will provide a semblance of rebalancing to their squad pool.

Clearly the one-cap Springbok and lanky former Sharks second-rower Stephan Lewies is enthusiastic about leaving a comfort zone, as he more or less put it, and trying the re-establish his Test credentials at a new franchise home. He is a just-turned 27, suggesting his best years might yet lie in front of him if he makes a suitable fist of things in the Big Smoke.

The Lions also added much-needed beef to their prop stocks by recruiting for 2019 the young, high-tonnage, low-centre-of-gravity tighthead Carlu Sadie: he is a promising talent indeed and was only really third in the pecking order at Newlands due to the presence of Bok stalwarts Frans Malherbe and Wilco Louw.

Similarly, well-travelled Danie Mienie adds to their loosehead arsenal, behind fit-again marauder Dylan Smith: he has played for all of the Sharks, Cheetahs, Griquas and Toulouse in France.

Don’t forget that they will hope for overdue, uninterrupted service this season, too, from versatile back-three kingpin Ruan Combrinck, who has not exactly had best luck with injuries for two years or so.

Cerebral playing style

The Lions clearly haven’t been furthest-progressing SA side for all of the last three seasons without possessing the correct muti when it comes to brand of rugby.

More often than not, the pace and intelligence of their game (first under Ackermann and then his former right-hand figure De Bruin) has so clearly seemed in much nearer the same league as, for instance, the finest New Zealand franchises.

While hardly ignoring the still vital, physically-orientated parts of the game, the Lions have tended to steer pleasingly clear of predictable, ponderous, “bumper-car” hallmarks to their play ... including advocating a genuinely 15-man approach and allowing individuals to back themselves if they see that something may be on even if from a seemingly unfavourable angle or part of the field.

Sooner or later, you’d imagine other SA-conference sides are going to finally haul them in for progressive rugby methods; whether it is yet, though, remains to be seen over the next few months. 

*NEXT IN SERIES: The Lions' shortcomings

LIONS Super Rugby focus: Their shortcomings

Following the more upbeat-angled first assessment, these are the reasons why the Lions could fall short of a fourth successive appearance in the Super Rugby final in 2019 (and possibly also not even boss the SA conference this year):

ALSO READ - LIONS Super Rugby focus: Their strengths

No more 'Factor Franco'

Can there possibly have been a better, more consistent workhorse on the South African Super Rugby scene for the past few seasons than Franco Mostert?

It will seem eerie and discomforting to Lions enthusiasts, more particularly, but also other compatriots watching them this season not to witness the lean, motor-beat combatant at the very fulcrum of their pack.

Mostert is one of those individuals who seems to defy the sports scientists by playing, with unerring relish, seemingly absurd amounts of rugby annually ... yet is also fiercely resistant to coming off before the “full eighty” in any matches.

Now, after numerous campaigns with "Sous" driving, cleaning, jumping and tackling with enormous vigour for the Lions since 2014, he has left their books for a new chapter with Gloucester in England.

There is a strong, combined work ethic at Emirates Airline Park, where humility is also valued, and they can also still field a strong enough, Mostert-less lock pairing if injuries don’t wreak significant havoc during the 2019 roster: Marvin Orie is coming on in leaps and bounds whether in a No 4 or 5 jersey, especially when he curbs hot-headed moments.

But boy, the Lions WILL still miss their Mossie ...

Dwindling depth

Again, the just-discussed Mostert is naturally a major part of this concern.

But the franchise’s bleeding of big names between Super Rugby seasons to overseas clubs includes all of loosie tearaway Jaco Kriel, bustling midfielder Rohan Janse van Rensburg, and two yeoman props in under-rated Jacques van Rooyen and sometimes Bok tighthead Ruan Dreyer.

All of them still with plenty of gas left in the rugby tank, this near-mass emigration is a blow of no small magnitude.

While the Lions, as mentioned in more upbeat part one of this survey, can now fast-track the development of a few promising young players to begin to make up for the drawback, there is also no substitute for rich experience in Super Rugby squads.

They are also going to feel even greater pain in some positions – perish the thought that superhuman hooker Malcolm Marx were suddenly to be stripped from their necessarily remodelled front row, for instance - if injuries hit them notably hard.

Risk of back-foot start to campaign

It is never that easy to play catch-up in Super Rugby.

But that is what the Lions could just be doing even before round three comes along: they begin with two relative stinkers (at least on paper) in the Jaguares in Buenos Aires and then Stormers in an appealing, already potentially high-stakes derby at Newlands.

While the next trio of games (Bulls, Jaguares again, and Rebels) are all reassuringly in Jo’burg, they could be sitting at nought from two ahead of that little stretch.

The first fixture in distant South America might not seem too formidable, considering that the visitors are last season’s tournament runners-up and the "Pumas in disguise" ended last season’s competition in unremarkable, mid-table seventh overall.

But that is not taking into account the Lions’ bleak track record in Buenos Aires: they have lost all of their three fixtures there since the Jaguares joined the competition: 49-35 last year, 36-24 in 2017 and 34-22 in 2016.

A shift in the trend would be an enormous tonic for the Lions ahead of their similarly perilous Capetonian date with the Stormers.

Another drawback in broad rostering terms for the Lions is that their main, three-match overseas leg includes real toughies in both the defending champion Crusaders and the Chiefs in New Zealand (Brumbies across the ditch first up).

Shortage of 'grunt' at loose forward

On the plus side, the Lions possess some of the most crowd-thrilling, athletic and game-breaking loosies of all local franchises.

Just for example, the starting trio they named for the Super Hero Sunday pre-season festival at Cape Town Stadium was captain Warren Whiteley at No 8, former SA Sevens favourite Kwagga Smith as open-side tearaway and the rangy young Hacjivah Daymani, still only 21, at No 7.

But the last-named player, for all his roaming ability and enviable skills set, is no traditional blindside flanker - a role that often enough demands a tight-playing, physical bruiser like a Pieter-Steph du Toit or Jean-Luc du Preez, especially on slow, heavier surfaces.

There it really seems "Cyle Brink or bust" for the Lions this year, especially as versatile lock-cum-flanker Lourens Erasmus has cruelly succumbed to long-term injury already and the afore-mentioned Mostert (certainly no slouch whenever he swaps five for seven) is no longer available to the cause.

Remember that it wasn’t too long ago, either, that the Lions could still boast another strapping young enforcer in Ruan Ackermann on the blindside flank, although he is now firmly ensconced in his new life at Gloucester.

You do need some balance to your loose trio, and the Jo'burg side somehow seem far better stocked in run-around men than they do big units with natural mongrel there.

It may not be a problem some of the time; it could be at others.