Rugby: Never mind the fans, Waratahs want to win

Dean Mumm passes during a Waratahs training session. Photo / Getty Images

Ignoring fans' pleas to play with flair, the NSW Waratahs will be happy to win ugly against the Lions in tonight's Super 15 match at the Sydney Football Stadium.

More than 100 diehard supporters vented their frustrations at the Waratahs at a fan forum on Thursday night, urging the competition's ugly ducklings to play with verve and stop kicking the leather off the ball.

But Waratahs skipper Dean Mumm, deputising for injured captain Phil Waugh, said the side's priority was to bag the four competition points to retain their place in the top six a month out from the playoffs.

"For me, it's all about winning," Mumm said at yesterday's captain's run. "Quite clearly, if we want to make the finals, we need to keep winning matches.

"I mean, you'd love to promise some things. But I just want to win the match and certainly that's the focus of the team as well.

"We want to play with ball in hand and play the opportunities that are in front of us, whether that's kicking or running, we'll have to wait and see when we get out there.

"But the focus is on winning."

Chris Hickey was a coach under siege at the fan forum, savaged for trying to use statistics to demonstrate that NSW had actually been reasonably successful in 2011, despite suffering a raft of injuries to key personnel.

Hickey, though, yesterday brushed off the fans' fury as "part and parcel" of the job and vowed to continue business as usual this weekend.

"I got up this morning, had a good breakfast and it's a beautiful day and we've got the Lions in front of us, so that's our focus," Hickey said. "People obviously wanted to get some things off their chests. That was fine, we listened to what they had to say.

"Obviously we've got to go away and digest and analyse what the comments were and see if and what we need to action from that.

"But that takes time. It doesn't happen in 10 minutes."

The Lions are running last, but roared to life last week with their first-ever win over the Brumbies in Canberra.

"That was a pretty good performance from them down there and certainly to win against the Brumbies at home is good for any side," Mumm said.

"So that certainly put us fully aware of how dangerous they are."

Mumm said any side coached by John Mitchell, with former All Blacks playmaker Carlos Spencer as assistant coach and World Cup-winning Springbok Butch James in the backline, deserved respect.

The Waratahs are sitting just one point ahead of the seventh-placed Highlanders and four in front of the eighth-placed Bulls with five rounds remaining.

The Tahs head to South Africa tomorrow for a pivotal two-game run against the Bulls and Sharks, making the Lions game a must-win affair.

Hickey yesterday confirmed that Waugh's hamstring injury had ruled the flanker out of the South Africa trip.

- AAP