Lions navigating uncharted waters: ‘We’re trying the best we can’

The Lions are navigating uncharted waters, as they battle grief from the sudden loss of teammate Hyron Andrews last week, while turning their attention to a tough United Rugby Championship (URC) tour of Scotland, with Edinburgh up first on Friday night.

The tragic passing of Andrews on Friday, a day before the Lions’ first ever Champions Cup match against La Rochelle in France, came as a huge shock, with the players choosing to play the game in his honour.

Post game last Saturday they immediately set off for Scotland for URC games against Edinburgh and Glasgow Warriors, before they can finally get home and have a chance to recover and grieve during the November international break.

Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday ahead of the Edinburgh game, Lions scrum coach Julian Redelinghuys explained that they were taking each day as it comes, as this was a situation that one can’t prepare for.

“There’s no manual for this. We don’t know how the players are going to respond. We can only do what we can to support the guys as much as we can and do what we think will be best for the weekend,” said Redelinghuys.

“I don’t think there’s any team that has had to go through a specific thing like this, where a player died in camp a day before a game and then they were on tour for another two weeks. Coach Jaque Fourie was talking to the team about when they played for the Barbarians, and you’ve got no preparation time.

“You just switch on mentally when you step between the four white lines. Now, to shift from the emotional side and focus on the rugby process is something that’s not easy, but we’re trying the best we can.”

Decision to play

Explaining the decision made by the players and team management to play against La Rochelle last weekend and honour their team-mate Andrews, Redelinghuys said that they didn’t have many options and had to make a quick call, before trying to prepare for the game as best they could.

“We put up a vote to the players to say, are we willing to play? How are we going to honour Hyron and his family best? Is it by playing? Is it by not playing? So all the decisions had to be made in a short time span,” said Redelinghuys.

“You can postpone (the game) by one day or then play or forfeit the game. So those were the options which we had to discuss. That was discussed on Friday already.

“When the decision was made that we are going to honour Hyron and his family by playing, the decision was made. We still didn’t do the captain’s run (on Friday). And then we took the rest of the afternoon off.

“We spent the evening together, and then Saturday morning, it was a normal matchday programme, even though it’s not really normal.”