Kriel believes lowly Lions only need minor tweaks to start prowling in URC again

A lowly two wins from eight starts puts the Lions in recently familiar territory on the United Rugby Championship log - they lie 14th - but stand-in skipper Jaco Kriel believes now is the time for calm heads to prevail.

Indeed, given how the men from Ellis Park were criticised last week for lacking "heart and attitude" in their first of two derbies against the Bulls, the immediate priority was simply showing some commitment again.

And, at least, that was evident in this past weekend's 13-21 loss at Loftus.

"It's never nice to say such things, but it also doesn’t help if you sit in the changeroom and lie to each other that it's this and that," said Kriel, who was the first guy to question his team-mates' lack of oomph previously.

"We looked each other in the eye and on Monday, we took the shots in the video sessions, and everybody was singled out who needed to be singled out, and we worked on that."I think as a group, if you as a player can’t handle that positive criticism and work on it, then you don't belong in the professional era.

"It's great to see that the guys responded to last week's game, and really showed heart. As a group, we must just stick together, and we know that we can be much more clinical than what we were in this game."

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The Lions will be concerned by their recent impotence on attack though, having scored just two tries in their last 160 minutes on the field and struggling to translate spurts of dominance into real pressure.

Better

They've also trumpeted their defence under a new coach in Jaque Fourie, but three tries conceded means it's still very much a work in progress.

"I'm not going to say we are happy with conceding three tries, but we