Two Thousand Five Hundred Tackles

THE RECORD. 2,575 tackles made, 417 missed, 78 per cent success. 123 turnovers won against 237 lost.

THE READING. Seventy-eight per cent is not a measure of effort; it is a measure of connection and execution.

THE QUESTION. Not whether to tackle more, but whether to tackle earlier, together, and with fewer unnecessary decisions.

TACKLES MADE: 2,575 across the season. TACKLES MISSED: 417. TACKLE SUCCESS: 78 per cent.

That last figure is the one to sit with. Seventy-eight per cent means roughly one tackle in five did not stick. Across eighty minutes that is a manageable number. Across the final quarter of a tight away match it is how ten-point leads disappear, and it did, twice — in Perpignan in the Challenge Cup and in Swansea in the URC.

TURNOVERS WON: 123. TURNOVERS LOST: 237. The Lions gave the ball away almost twice as often as they took it. For a side built on offloading that ratio is partly a design feature, but at nearly two to one it is beyond what the attacking return justifies.

POINTS CONCEDED: 473 in the league phase, 70 tries. Both figures put the Lions in the middle of the competition rather than the top of it, and both are the reason a side with a +59 difference finished seventh rather than fourth.

THE HOME AND AWAY SPLIT. 209 conceded in nine matches at Ellis Park. 264 conceded in nine away. Strip out the 52 conceded at home to the Bulls and the Johannesburg figure falls under twenty a match.

WHAT CHANGES IT. Not effort — 2,575 tackles is not a side that failed to show up. What moves 78 per cent towards the mid-eighties is line speed, connection and the discipline not to shoot out of a defensive line in search of the turnover that the attacking instinct keeps asking for.