Northward bound: Still the right move for South African rugby?
So the dust has settled on the inaugural United Rugby Championship tournament, with the Stormers celebrating a deserved first championship win over the Bulls…
The Lions continued to show why they are one of the top teams in the Super Rugby competition this season with a comfortable 35-point win over the Kings in Round 9.
Final score
Kings 10
Lions 45
The Kings face a significant challenge when they come up against the Lions in Round 9 of the 2016 Super Rugby season. Join The Roar for live scores from the match, starting at 1:10am AEST.
The Lions have five wins from this season so far and sit at the top of the Africa 2 conference. In contrast, their opponents have only a single win and are at the bottom of that same conference. On the overall standings, the Lions are coming in at third and the Kings are at the very bottom after the Sunwolves got their first win ever and overtook them earlier today.
So far this season the Lions have taken wins over the Sunwolves (26-13), the Chiefs (36-32), the Cheetahs (39-22), the Sharks (24-9) and the Stormers (29-22), with their only losses coming against last season’s champs the Highlanders (15-34) and the Crusaders (37-43).
They’ve proven themselves to be one of the best sides in South Africa and indeed in the entire competition.
The Kings on the other hand have only been able to claim a single victory, recording a five-point win over the Sunwolves in Round 5. Worryingly for them, they haven’t really been able to show any competitiveness outside of that, losing all their other matches so far this season by significant margins.
It’s for this reason that they have the worst points differential in the league at -151 coming into this match and are sitting on the bottom of the table. The Lions on the other hand may not have the best points differential at just 31 but have been able to consistently take home wins.
Prediction
The Lions look like a lock to gain their sixth win of the season here, and in the manner of other Kings games so far this year should do so by a comfortable margin.
Lions by 25.
Join The Roar for live scores from the match, starting at 1:10am AEST.