How do the Lions find a way to win outside SA?

The 10bet Lions face a tough question as they go into their last Vodacom United Rugby Championship game before the November break - how do they find a way to win abroad?

While their losses on this tour - to La Rochelle in the Champions Cup two weekends ago and this past weekend to URC log leaders Edinburgh can be understood in the wake of the devastating loss of their lock, Hyron Andrews, and the impact on the team, they face a tough task on Friday against Glasgow Warriors in Scotland and will desperately be looking for a win.

The stats don’t read well at all for them going into the game - their last win outside South Africa was a 10-9 win over Zebre Parma on 19 October 2024.

Since then they have lost 12 games in a row overseas in all competitions - some of them by very slim margins - and will need to find a way to reverse this trend if they want to go into the November break without losing too much ground on the rest of the competition.

That run started after losing to Leinster in October 2024, a wet Dublin night that stopped their momentum after wins in Newport against the Dragons and then Parma. It was followed a month later by a seven-point loss to Munster (17-10) and then a big loss to Ospreys in Bridgend in the first round of the EPCR Challenge Cup.

LONG RUN OF LOSSES

They didn’t fare much better in the 2025/6 season, losing 33-20 to Cardiff in round one, and then a week later to Zebre (22-20) in Parma. Their third tour game was even worse, with a 41-15 loss when Louis Lynagh gave them nightmares with a superb performance.

They returned up north in December 2025 for a narrow loss to an underperforming Newcastle Falcons, and then toured again in May 2026, losing 31-19 to Leinster, then 24-17 to Munster as they managed to make the top eight for the first time on the back of some good wins at home.

But returning to Dublin for the quarterfinal, they were smashed by Leinster 59-10 as the defending champions were in a ruthless mood.

This season the emotional game against La Rochelle would never have been expected to deliver a victory, but there was a massive disappointment in their 31-10 loss to Edinburgh on Friday night. Three second-half tries sunk the Lions as their defence gave in, something coach Ivan van Rooyen admitted afterwards.

DISCIPLINE AND DEFENCE MUST IMPROVE

Van Rooyen wasn’t down after the defeat, but targeted discipline and defence as the key areas that need to improve before Friday.

“We know Glasgow is a team that wants to play, and if your discipline isn’t good, they're going to kick it to the corner and maul you with 10 or 12 players. So discipline is important for next week,” he said.

“We also made three poor defensive decisions against Edinburgh and all three ended up in tries. So, this is obviously something we need to look at this week. And then on the attack, we lost a bit of shape as well, and didn’t really get momentum early on. That makes it difficult in the wet conditions. If you don’t get momentum on the attack, then you have to go into a kicking game and hope to get the ball back or hope for favourable outcomes.

“So, we have a lot of small things we need to work on this week.”

Van Rooyen said that the mistakes shouldn't define them and that the Lions know they can be better.

SEEING POSITIVES

“You can be with your head underwater and only see the errors, but there were still some good things we did,” Van Rooyen said.

“However, we made too many mistakes tonight (Friday). On defence, we made three fatal errors that ended up in points for them, and we just could not get that momentum on the attack. We didn’t hang onto the ball long enough.

“The one time we did it well, Batho (Hlekani, flanker) scored a good try. Without possession off the lineouts, it’s already difficult in these circumstances, so we will have to fix our lineouts. We will pick our heads up and find a way next week.”