Western Province must win their final three Currie Cup matches, preferably all with a bonus point, and hope for some favours from other teams if they want to reach the play-offs.
With the way they are playing and struggling in the competition, the semi-finals will likely be a bridge too far after going down without any points against the Lions on Saturday.
Ellis Park was not kind to the Cape side in a must-win clash, with the home team comprehensively outplaying their visitors, and winning 41-22.
The Lions moved into second place on the log with WP stuck in sixth, a full five points behind the Pumas who they must still face in Mbombela in a couple of weeks. It was a game of two halves where the Lions dominated the opening 40 minutes but took their foot off the pedal, allowing WP back into the game in the second 40.
Mziwakhe Nkosi, Lions coach, said they surrendered momentum with that performance after half-time and couldn't get going after dominating initially.
“In contrast, we were good in the first half and could challenge them coming up to altitude. It was a game of two contrasting halves, but we are happy to take the five points.
“We tried to move them (WP) around and to a large degree we did that," Nkosi said about their game plan.
The Lions travel to the Cheetahs this weekend in a bid to stay among the top two sides in the competition. Nkosi hopes it will be a good game on the eye.
“We have to back ourselves and make a charge for the play-offs, and we have to do more of what’s good for us and be critical about the things we have to sort out.”
Western Province will return to Cape Town wounded and on the brink of not making the play-offs. They have been using the tournament to bleed youngsters, and while it’s been good game time, they haven’t been able to string together a performance of 80 minutes.
“|There were some good things we could take out of the game and we will probably focus on that more. But there are also some individual errors we have to address.” – Dawie Snyman
“It’s never easy coming to Ellis Park. We made three errors in that first half that took the game away from us,” WP assistant coach Dawie Snyman said.
“At the start of the second half we lost a line-out and they went on to score from there. Those mistakes are costly up here. When we had the ball, we looked like putting the Lions under pressure but we didn’t see enough of that. The second half was more or less the same story.
“There were some good things we could take out of the game and we will probably focus on that more. But there are also some individual errors we have to address.”
The Sharks are going from strength to strength after a tough start to the Currie Cup and defeated defending champions the Cheetahs 25-20 in a tough battle in Bloemfontein.
They led 15-3 at one stage before the home side mounted a comeback, but the lead was just too big and the Durban side could hold out for a second successive win. They claimed fourth place with the victory and will look to cement their semi-final berth over the next few weekends.
The Bulls remain at the top of the log after downing the Pumas 40-24 in Pretoria on Friday evening. The Loftus side of Phiwe Nomlomo is still without a loss with three games left before the play-offs.
Yesterday, the Griquas comfortably beat the winless Griffons 59-7 in Welkom.