How the British and Irish Lions can win third Test showdown in South Africa

Back in 1997, the tourists capitalised on a 25-16 success in the opening game, going on to win 18-15 in Durban courtesy of Jeremy Guscott’s infamous late drop-goal, rendering their final match a dead rubber.

Not that there is anything easy about beating the current world champions, or emerging triumphant from a Lions tour, but Saturday’s 27-9 defeat to the Springboks means that Warren Gatland’s men well have to do it the hard way this time around.

As their head coach himself admitted post-match, the Lions now have a “cup final” scenario to contend with.

On Saturday, just as was the case 24 years earlier, it was South Africa who came into the contest severely under the cosh and needing to save the series.

“For me personally, as a leader, last week was the toughest I’ve ever had to face. It (the pressure) was huge,” their talismanic captain Siya Kolisi reflected.

While it would be unfair to say that they crumbled under the weight in 1997 given that the second Test was level at 15-15 before Guscott conjured up that moment of magic, ultimately the Springboks ended up losing that must-win encounter.

This time around, they delivered – and some. Their second-half display was dominant.

Inspired by the presence of Lood De Jager off the replacements’ bench, the hosts looked superior in almost every department, scoring 21 unanswered points.

In doing so, they swung the momentum of the series their way.

Make no mistake, having run out of steam in the series opener and gone on to surrender a 12-3 advantage, the South Africans were very much staring down the barrel at the halfway stage of Saturday’s contest.

Trailing 1-0 overall and also 9-6 on the scoreboard, Jacques Nienaber’s troops found the required response and now surely have the ascendancy.

Coming off the back of a morale-bosting comprehensive victory, not only do they look to have found their groove and have their tails up, they also boast a game-plan that they know inside out and that they trust. It has afterall, won them a World Cup.

They will rely on their power, abrasiveness, the strength of their set-piece and the effectiveness of their maul. Perhaps most significantly, they will kick, kick and then kick some more, safe in the knowledge that this tactic pretty much always works for them.

The Lions are, of course, a touring side. They are never going to be as well-oiled a machine, but two matches in, I’m not really sure of this group’s identity or what the blueprint for them beating their hosts looks like.

Kolisi revealed that a big part of the Springboks’ preparation for Saturday’s crunch encounter was “going back to what you know” and trusting in the process.

I do not know if the Lions have this to fall back on so it will be fascinating to see how they approach the series decider.

Gatland’s apparent rope-a-dope masterstroke in the first Test ultimately paid off.

Expecting that the Boks would tire given the impact of Covid-19 on their preparations for the game, it appeared that he gambled on them punching themselves out before he unleashed the cavalry from the bench and left the fresh legs and clearer minds to finish the job.

The ploy worked, but it was a gamble, and the Lions were so poor during the opening 40 of what was very much a game of two halves, that they could easily have been dead and buried by the interval.

This time around, given the confidence one would expect the South Africans to take into the final Test, you would not expect them to let the tourists get away with one again – not that fitness and running out of steam should be a factor this Saturday.

If they get their knee on the Lions’ throat at the weekend, then I do not expect it to slip off a second time. Gatland’s men, in my opinion, need to play on the front foot and look to be trying to build a platform to win the match from the off.

While an elite level game of rugby is rarely won in the opening 20 minutes, it can be lost there and the Lions do not want to find themselves playing catch-up because South Africa will just be able to squeeze the life out of them in such a situation.

Whatever their plans for trying to hurt their opponents end up being, the tourists simply must find a way to negate the Springbok kicking game.

Second-guessing Gatland’s plans regarding his starting XV for the next game is probably a waste of time given some of the surprise selections he made ahead of the first Test, but because of how crucial it is that that the Lions compete better in the air, the skill in that department of Liam Williams and Josh Adams will surely lead to them being deployed in the back-three.

But first things first. Before team selection, tactics and game-plan comes the mental side. The way that the tourists approach the decider and their mind-set heading into it will go a long way to determining the outcome.

One would assume that the reset button needs to pressed to ensure that they do not take to the field in Cape Town scarred by their second-half mauling last time out.

Back in 2009, the Lions won the final Test against the South Africans – albeit 2-0 down and with nothing at stake – having been given a few days off by Sir Ian McGeechan in the build-up.

The training session he witnessed on the day his charges returned from that break was “one of the best” he was involved with as a Lion, so it will be interesting to see if Gatland adopts a similar approach.

So, to sum up, the challenge facing the Lions is three-fold. Firstly, they have to deal with the pressure of the situation they find themselves in, handle it and believe that they can wrestle back the ascendancy from their hosts . Secondly, they have to find a way to compete better to prevent the South Africans controlling the contest and playing it at their own pace.

Thirdly, they must come up with and fully embrace a plan which enables them to hurt their hosts when in possession of the ball – given the Springboks’ physicality, them being to be able to do this relies heavily on getting some quick ball at some stage and being able to up the tempo so that their backs can ask a few questions on the outside.

In Gatland, the Lions boast a leader with a proven track record of delivering the goods, of inspiring reactions from his players and of upsetting the odds, but the task at hands looks a very tall order.