Shrewd business, relentless defence: 5 reasons why the Lions have emerged as SA's URC dark horses

The Lions have surprised all and sundry with a superb URC tour that culminated in three victories from three outings, in the process raising real hope that a talented squad finally has the ability to arrest a few years of underachievement.

By all accounts, the platform has been laid and now needs to be capitalised on.

Sport24 checks out what they've done right to date.

Assembling a low-key but highly talented squad

When Johan Ackermann and Swys de Bruin were guiding the Lions during their most successful period of the professional era, they did so by targeting and moulding young proverbial rejects from other unions while also getting juniors on the payroll that weren't attracting the limelight already.

In Jaco Kriel, Ruan Combrinck, Franco Mostert, Andries Coetzee, Julian Redelinghuys, Courtnall Skosan and Robbie Coetzee, the franchise found a core of underrated stars who could drive a resurgence along with three established, genuine Springbok prospects in Warren Whiteley, Elton Jantjies and Lionel Mapoe.

However, the key here was that it took the national hierarchy a substantial time to realise that this group of players warranted higher honours, allowing Ackermann almost three years to build his excellent squad without the disruption of Bok duty demands.

About five years later, the Lions under Ivan van Rooyen are in a similar position, with the only material difference being that the youthful core is now some of the best junior or recent junior players in the country - Jordan Hendrikse, Henco van Wyk, Quan and Francke Horn, Ruan Venter, Sbu Sangweni, Sanele Nohamba and Emmanuel Tshituka.

As Van Rooyen noted in the pre-season: "Our approach has been to sign and develop players we believe could form the core of the Bok squad