Lions – Jaguares

The Lions and the Jaguares will square off on Saturday in the Super Rugby quarterfinals, with the South African side set to host their Argentinean opponents in Johannesburg.

The Lions (9-0-7 in the regular season) have been one of the best teams in Super Rugby over the last few seasons, reaching the final in both 2016 and 2017, although they lost each time against New Zealand opposition. This year they continued their dominance in the South African conference, which they won. However, they did seem a bit less commanding than in years past, losing 7 games and actually finishing tied in number of wins with today`s opponents.

The Jaguares (9-0-7) have been very disappointing since entering Super Rugby in 2016, with people questioning if the franchise was actually a good thing for Argentinean rugby. However, this year the Jaguares took a giant leap forward and have reached the playoffs for the first time. They had an excellent season, but on the downside their recent form has been suspect.

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Team news & lineups:

The Lions will miss Nic Groom, but will field a top lineup in this clash. The Jaguares will make a number of changes after resting many important players in the last regular season game last week.

Lions: 15 Andries Coetzee, 14 Ruan Combrinck, 13 Lionel Mapoe, 12 Harold Vorster, 11 Aphiwe Dyantyi, 10 Elton Jantjies, 9 Ross Cronjé, 8 Warren Whiteley (c), 7 Cyle Brink, 6 Kwagga Smith, 5 Franco Mostert, 4 Marvin Orie, 3 Ruan Dreyer, 2 Malcolm Marx, 1 Jacques van Rooyen

Jaguares: 15 Emiliano Boffelli, 14 Bautista Delguy, 13 Matias Orlando, 12 Jeronimo de le Fuente, 11 Matias Moroni, 10 Nicolas Sanchez, 9 Gonzalo Bertranou, 8 Javier Ortega Desio, 7 Tomas Lezana, 6 Pablo Matera (c), 5 Marcos Kremer, 4 Guido Petti, 3 Nahuel Tetaz Chaparro, 2 Agustin Creevy, 1 Santiago Garcia Botta

The Jaguares had an excellent season overall, getting some massive wins and playing toe to toe with the big boys for certain periods of time. However, at the moment they seemed to have taken a step back.

The Jaguares were on fire before the International break in June, and the players were confident going to the National team to take on Wales (twice) and Scotland at home, both European Nations being set to field “B” teams.

Argentina (which is basically the Jaguares team) surely expected three wins from those games, but it all turned into a giant fiasco, with the Pumas losing all three matches in shocking and humiliating fashion (10-23, 12-30, 15-44). It really was a horrible display from the Jaguares players, who then returned to the club team with morale shattered.

From the three matches played after the International games the Jaguares lost two (the last two although they did rest many key players last weekend), the other one being a rather unimpressive win against the Stormers. Surely confidence is not great, and there could be some fatigue involved as well.

Even if this season they looked less impressive than in the previous one, the Lions are still playing some great rugby. They are the better team here and at home they should take care of the Jaguares in any circumstances, even if a Jaguares team in top form could make it a match.

But the Argentinians just aren`t looking sharp since that disastrous International break, so I will back the Lions to win this comfortably by 10+ points. Look for them to match their opponents in the forward battle and dominate the kicking and the wide game.

It`s also worth noting that the Lions have experience of winning at this level, while Jaguares are for the first time in the playoffs. They do have plenty of international experience with all their national team players, but not the experience of winning big games, so that could have an impact as well. Prediction: Lions – Jaguares 31 – 16.

Pick: Lions -9,5
Odds: 1.93 @ 1xBet
Stake: 8
Possible profit: 7.44
Event date: 21 July