Western Province coach Allister Coetzee has acknowledged that his team will have to shed their conservative, pragmatic outer skin and roll the dice against the Lions at Newlands on Saturday to keep their slim Currie Cup hopes alive.
The only player who sat out training on Monday was flyhalf Peter Grant, resting the ankle injury he suffered against Boland on Saturday.
Besides a bonus point-less win, WP are still smarting at a throat-slitting gesture directed at head coach Rassie Erasmus and team manager Chippy Solomons by a Boland official.
Relations between the two regional cousins are at an alltime low, but Province don't have time to dwell on dramas secondary to the main theme - ending a Currie Cup drought that is the second longest in WP history. In the 119-year history of the competition, the longest Province went without winning the trophy was 11 years, from 1968-78.
For Province to make the play-offs and in all probability a tough away semifinal against the Sharks, they will have to score four tries, win by at least 19 points and deny the Lions any log points on Saturday.
And to accomplish that, Coetzee knows his players are going to have to play a calculated game of Russian roulette.
Some of that old Stormers magic would suffice - harking back to those glory days of Bob Skinstad and Corne Krige and a team that was never shy to express itself.
The Lions do not have to take the game to Province, they can afford the luxury of being ultra-conservative and feasting off WP's mistakes on the counter-attack, and will almost certainly be out to frustrate at the breakdown and disrupt the tempo of the contest.
The whole dynamic will change, however, if WP can score early tries against a Lions side that will be forced to change their game-plan the closer Province get to the desired score-line.
The WP brains trust studied the Lions' defeat to the Sharks in a video session on Monday and Coetzee had little hesitancy predicting that there would be a lot of lineouts this weekend.
Clearly Province are expecting Lions flyhalf Earl Rose and scrumhalf Jano Vermaak to take the battle to the skies in a effort to force mistakes under pressure. That also means the Province back three should have enough ball to counter-attack if they run the right lines in support of one another.
At the same time the stage is set for magnificent battles in midfield between the WP centre combination of Jean de Villiers and Sireli Naqelevuki and Doppies la Grange and Jaque Fourie, a Bok teammate of the WP skipper.
It all adds up to an epic, where a full strength WP have to find the Super 14 magic that saw them beating the Western Force in Perth and going on to just miss out on a semifinal by, believe it or not, a bonus point in their final group game against the Lions.
"Having Jaque (Fourie) back (from injury) has made a difference as he is a good organiser and he is worth his weight on defence too. Jean knows him well and Doppies is also an experienced No 12 and a good stealer who competes on the ground. So it's a good combination we are up against," said Coetzee.
Rose, a Cape product who infuriated the Newlands hierarchy a few years ago when he and brother Jody signed for the Lions after being groomed by WP from junior ranks, will be out to prove a point against Springbok Grant.
Had Rose not fluffed his lines on Saturday, gifting the Sharks two tries from poor kicks, the Lions would already have been in the play-offs.
Coetzee added: "It's like a final on Saturday, but if we can get just 12 points ahead, we will be just one try short of achieving one objective (19 points). Now we've got to go out and really play, that is the bottom line. There's no lacking in motivation and the players are relishing it and will be up for the task," vowed Coetzee.
WP have to score four tries and win by 19 points, whilst denying the Lions any bonus points in order to progress.
For every point Province score on Saturday, the for/against points difference between the two teams narrows by two. At present, Lions' difference is +137, and WP's is +101. On this basis, WP have to score 19 points more than the Lions to achieve their objective.