I don’t think this is about the way the lion faces, I think it’s about a round badge being dated.I hope they go for a stand alone lion.
Examples...
First one, 1874 could be moved to 3 and 9 o'clock with Prepared added at the bottom. Really don't like the font, it's too weak. Needs to be more bold, embroidered, not some nameless computer font. The right facing lion looks so wrong, like something Randy would do on Photoshop. I'm delighted Heck has called a stop to this school project.