Of course it’s impossible to turn back the clock, but one wonders whether ex-Sharks coach Dick Muir would be tempted if he could. The Springbok assistant-coach, who won 27 of the 42 matches that he presided over while guiding the Sharks to fifth in 2006, the final a year later and the semi-finals in his final season in 2008, took on a lot when he agreed to head up the Lions this year. Only now does he realize how much!
With one week left to go in their Super 14 season, the not-so-super Lions stand on the brink of completing the first ever winless Super 14. Already, their season of lows has included a number of unwanted marks with at least two more appearing inevitable:
* 12 consecutive games lost – the most by any team in one Super Rugby season.
* 13 games lost in a row in total – which equals the run by the 2003-04 Cats for the most successive defeats by any side in Super Rugby.
* 63 tries conceded, with one game still to go. This is already six more than has been let in previously during a Super Rugby season.
* 526 points conceded which is 26 worse than the previous record, recorded by the Bulls of 2002, and the Lions still have one more game to come.
* A points differential of – 266 with one game to go. That is just two points short of the worst differential for a season, which belongs to the Bulls of 2002. The “Terri Bulls’ finished at – 268, while becoming the first team to lose every game of a Super Rugby season when they were beaten 11 times during that year’s Super 12.
The moral must be lower than ever before for the Lions as the two cellar dwellers face each other, but I can't see the hosts doing anything different and will surely lose to the Cheetahs who at least have managed to lift themselves off the bottom of the barrel.
