Northern Edition

Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
New Zealand New Zealand
France France

Lions' Super Rugby hopes dealt a blow with Springbok Kwagga Smith ruled out for the season

Lions flanker Kwagga Smith in action in 2018's Super Rugby final. (Photo by Martin Hunter / Getty Images )

The Lions have been a dealt a major blow in the lead up to the finals rounds of Super Rugby for 2019.

ADVERTISEMENT

Loose-forward Kwagga Smith – one of the Lions’ best performers this seasons – will play no further part in the competition due to an injury suffered against the Hurricanes. Early in the match, when the Lions were leading 10-7, Smith made a linebreak but failed to find his teammates and ultimately sent the ball into touch. Smith left the field immediately afterwards with what is now known to be a hamstring injury. The Hurricanes went on to win the game 37-17.

The injury issues don’t end there for the Lions, however, who will also be without lock Stephan Lewies (knee injury) and prop Sti Sithole (hamstring) for their final match of the regular season against the Bulls. Sithole should be available for the quarterfinals.

If the Lions manage to win in Pretoria this weekend, they will finish in 5th place and travel to Wellington to play the Hurricanes once more. Ironically, a loss would likely see them on the road to the Jaguares or Brumbies – fixtures which many would consider easier than the Hurricanes rematch.

ADVERTISEMENT

LIVE

{{item.title}}

Trending on RugbyPass

Comments

0 Comments
Be the first to comment...

Join free and tell us what you really think!

Sign up for free
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest Features

Comments on RugbyPass

F
Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

4 Go to comments
TRENDING
TRENDING Borthwick, it's time to own up – Andy Goode Borthwick, it's time to own up – Andy Goode
Search