News

Patience key for hungry Lions

October 14 2008

Wellington coach Jamie Joseph has stressed the need for his players to show more patience in attack as they build towards their Air New Zealand Cup semi-final showdown against Southland on Friday.

The Lions were at their entertaining best against Taranaki as they ran in seven tries in the 50-30 quarter-final win at Westpac Stadium on Saturday.

But Joseph, and the players, were unhappy with the number of turnovers they conceded and the fact that they never really put the game to bed until the final few minutes, with the visitors trailing by only six points with just six minutes to go.

"I think individually we played very well but I thought collectively as a team we let ourselves down in certain areas," said Joseph.

"That we didn't capitalise on our line-breaks is one area where we have capitalised on earlier in the season. It's certainly something we'll be working on this week.

"We breached their defensive line in that first 15 to 20 minutes four or five times yet the ball went missing.

"You call it entertainment, I call it frustration. The thing the players need to learn is that when they breach they need to be patient because there are another 14 guys coming. They just need to wait.

"They are an extremely talented lot and they're always looking to attack but if you attack and don't score any points it's a waste of time so that's what we've got to get better at."

Lions captain Piri Weepu is certainly not keen for the team to shed their tag of entertainers at this late stage in the season.

"If we change it's not going to help us," he said.

"If we play the rugby that we've been playing and everyone is used to it then trying to change to something we're not used to is probably not going to help.

"Over the years, Wellington has tried to entertain and have had that ability to attack from anywhere but we've got to work on a few things as a team."

With Scott Fuglistaller suffering a season-ending shoulder injury in Saturday's game, one of Joseph's first tasks this week will be deciding who should fill the role at openside flanker.

Rodney So'oialo came on and combined with Chris Masoe in a left-right role on Saturday but specialist Serge Lilo, who has been out with a knee injury, is back in training.

It will also be interesting to see if Weepu remains at fly-half or whether the steadier approach of Daniel Kirkpatrick, who started from the bench after a disrupted build-up to the quarter-final following the birth of his first child, is preferred.