Roar Guru
Good evening and welcome to Super Rugby’s third quarter-final as the table-topping Lions play host to their South African rivals the Sharks. Join The Roar for live scores and coverage from 10:30pm (AEST).
The Lions have had a superb season, dropping only one match throughout the entire regular season and not only topped their conference but also the competition as a whole.
It earns them the right to host all the way to the grand final if they can manage to win and they are rightly favourites to go one step further and claim their first title.
The Sharks come into the knock-out stages as the lowest wildcard qualifier after what would probably be deemed a less than satisfactory season to date. They have mixed some very inconsistent form throughout to finish with nine wins, five losses and a single draw for their efforts.
Ironically, these two teams met in their last regular season clash with the Lions prevailing reasonably comfortably away in Durban by 27 points to ten and would appear to repeat that dose at home today.
However nothing can be certain within knock-out rugby. Particularly with a local derby, expect the Sharks to be highly motivated this evening, and with all the expectation now lying with the Lions, it’s a prime opportunity for the Durban locals to provide quite a boil over.
After the experiences of last season though and with plenty of emotion surrounding this Lions side, I doubt they will be walking into an ambush.
Prediction
While I believe the Sharks are capable, they have yet to display anything near the form of the Lions this season and playing at home, the Lions will win comfortably for mine.
Lions by 20.
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