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Lions name new captain for battle of the big cats
By Online Editors
Elton Jantjies will lead the Emirates Lions on the field for the first time in their Super Rugby opener against the Jaguares in Argentina this weekend.
Jantjies has 134 career Super Rugby caps (121 for the Lions and 13 for the Stormers) while he has amassed 1103 points over his nine seasons of Super Rugby. He is just the fourth player to pass the 1100-point mark with Morne Steyn, who will make a return this year with the Bulls, the only other South African player on the list.
Courtnall Skosan, who has been named to start on the left wing, holds the record for the most Lions tries, with 33 from 72 matches.
Lock Ruben Schoeman and fullback Tiaan Swanepoel will make their Super Rugby debuts this weekend while reserves Morne van der Berg and Manuel Rass could also do so from the bench.
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2020 marks the second year in succession that the Lions have kicked off their season with a game against Argentina's only Super Rugby franchise. Last year, the Lions emerged with a 25-16 win from their visit to Buenos Aires but, come the end of the season, the Jaguares led the South African conference.
While the Jaguares recorded seven wins on the trot before falling to the Crusaders in the final, the Lions somehow fell from 5th spot on the overall ladder to 9th in the last two weeks of the regular season.
Given that the Lions had participated in the previous three finals, it was a massive fall from grace for the Johannesburg-based side.
Ivan van Rooyen, who took over the Lions in a caretaker capacity last year but has been confirmed as their head coach moving forward, will desperate for his side to make a solid start to the season.
Lions: Tiaan Swanepoel, Tyrone Green, Duncan Matthews, Dan Kriel, Courtnall Skosan, Elton Jantjies (c), Andre Warner, Len Massyn, Vincent Tshituka, Marnus Schoeman, Marvin Orie, Ruben Schoeman, Jannie du Plessis, Pieter Jansen, Dylan Smith. Reserves: Jan-Henning Campher, Sti Sithole, Carlu Sadie, Wilhelm van der Sluys, Ruan Vermaak, Hacjivah Dayimani, Morne van der Berg, Manuel Rass.
- with Lions Rugby
Japan head coach, Jamie Joseph, is concerned that a new Japanese club competition could hurt the Brave Blossoms' chances on the international circuit:
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Latest Comments
I hope super bee and mopar didn’t read it all.
Go to commentsYou’ve got to look forward to next weekend more than anything too.
They really use this sorta system? Much smaller pool of bonus points available, that would mean they have far less impact. Interestingly you must be withen winning range/chance in France’s Top 14 league, rather that just draw territory, so 6 points instead of 7. Fairly arbitrary and pointless (something the NRL would do to try and look cool), but kinda cool.
I said it Nick’s and other articles, I’m not sure about the fixed nature of matchups in these opening rounds. For instance, I would be interested in seeing an improved ranking/prediction/reflection ladder to what we had last year, were some author here game so rejigged list of teams purely based of ‘who had played who’ so far in the competition. It was designed to analyze the ladder and better predict what the real order would be after the full round robin had completed. It needed some improvement, like factoring in historical data as well, as it was a bit skiwif, but it is the sort of thing that would give a better depiction of what sort of contests weve had so far, because just using my intuition, the matchups have been very ‘level appropriate’ so far, and were jet to get the other end of the spectrum, season ranked bottom sides v top sides etc.
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