What we’ve learned from the Lions’ first week on Tour
More questions and talking points arose from the Lions’ first warm-up game than expected.
A week ago the Lions boarded a plane and headed for New Zealand with smiles aplenty. We got a first hint of what the tour social media would be like with a huge amount of content shared by the team and the players themselves, players laughing and relaxing for a long journey ahead. For this tour the players have set up a social media committee who will decide what should be shared. This is a clear sign from management of two things; that they will trust the players to be grown-ups and that they want the fans to feel engaged by the team, rather than at a remove.
On arrival in Auckland the squad got their first taste of Maori hospitality when greeted by an imposing group in traditional dress, who treated the tourists to their first Haka. Less intimidating was the traditional Hongi (what we would liken to an eskimo kiss) for captain Sam Warburton, a sign of respect and welcome. The Lions for their part responded with a rousing rendition of the traditional Welsh hymn Calon Lan — a far cry from Clive Woodward’s disastrous “Power of Four” from the 2005 tour.
It was also great to see the number of Lions fans already in attendance, Jack McGrath even had a fan in a Leinster jersey approach for a photo. The arrival generated the excitement and fun that the Lions (and indeed NZ rugby) would have hoped for.
Warren Gatland has aimed to build on the goodwill afforded to the occasion by use of an “old school” approach to winning the hearts and minds of the locals and the media. So we have seen the players visiting hospitals and schools where they have been warmly welcomed by children and staff alike. This also seems to have been well received by the players, realising that they are part of something bigger than just sport.
For all the usual questions of the value of the Lions in a modern world, it seems that there is still a sense of something special happening, from both the touring side and the host nation.
Opening Match
Having landed on Wednesday and taken to the training pitch for the first time on Thursday, the team was named for the opening match of the tour. The opposition were the New Zealand Provincial Barbarians (NZPB), an invitational team of young players not yet established at Super Rugby level with a few older heads thrown in. Selection for this first match was made from players who had not been involved in recent finals, so we would not really get any inkling of the pecking order from Gatland’s choices for this one. Interestingly, Bryn Gatland — Warren’s son — was named at outhalf for the NZPB team.
With the much anticipated kickoff, the waiting was over. Talk before the game had been of a vastly over-matched NZPB being put to the sword with a try soaked feast of running rugby, the reality ended up being nothing like that. The young Barbarians side launched themselves into ruck and tackle with enthusiastic ferocity and managed to enjoy territorial dominance for the opening 30 minutes. Johnny Sexton missed his first attempt at goal, but opened the scoring with his second after 16 minutes. Bryn Gatland was controlling the game excellently and it was a Garryowen from him into the Lions’ 22 that led to the opening try of the tour for NZPB captain Sam Anderson-Heather. The Lions would have been two tries down if not for an excellent chase and tackle by Taulupe Faletau where he rolled his man onto his back and held up the ball all in one movement.
This was not the tour opener that the Lions had hoped for and in the first half particularly there were a number of underwhelming performances. Stuart Hogg saw a kick bounce through his legs and failed to execute a simple two on one which would have led to an easy try for Anthony Watson. Sexton was unable to settle his team and failed to deliver the assured performance that he would have liked, while his halfback partner Greig Laidlaw similarly failed to take control of the game. Rory Best had a reasonable game but had one crooked lineout throw which may have caused the coaches some concern. Allied with the poor performers were a number of players that didn’t really get into the game at all; Joe Marler, Alun Wyn Jones, Iain Henderson, Tommy Seymour and Jonathan Joseph all had very quiet games.
It wasn’t all doom and gloom from the starting team where we saw Ben Te’o be a constant threat with ball in hand and make some crunching tackles, Taulupe Faletau made the aforementioned excellent tackle and carried well throughout and his compatriot Ross Moriarty showed up strongly in attack and defence. Kyle Sinckler had a strong game at tighthead to show any doubters (myself included) that he isn’t just here to make up the numbers.
Gatland was not slow to make changes with five substitutes on by the 51st minute, replaced were Sexton, Henderson, Marler, Best and Sinckler. These changes provided an almost instant reward with a try for Anthony Watson on 53 minutes. From there the game limped to a conclusion with the main point of note being a missed kick from Owen Farrell and a palpable sense of relief when Farrell kicked the ball off the park to end the game.
It is often said of this kind of tour that you cannot play your way into the test side in the opening game, but you can play your way out of it. In this vein there has been a lot of discussion about how Sexton was outplayed by his replacement Farrell and the test spot must now be Farrell’s to lose. In reality, Farrell delivered a quick try and very little else bar his missed kick to match Sexton’s own. What we did see was that every substitute improved on the performance of the man he replaced. This is very unusual and tells me that the starters felt the pressure of opening the tour and the subs felt much looser coming on. With that in mind I don’t think Gatland will read too much into this game at all and while players may have been disappointed with their own performances, they will certainly have further chances to impress.
With all said and done, what we saw was a matchup between two scratch teams, one of which were massive underdogs playing the game of their lives, the other expected to win easily. The result was an impassioned game from the “lesser” team and a stuttering performance from the favourites.
So, Gatland should be happy with the win and to have that game out of the way. He will also be happy on a personal level for the fine performance put on by his son Bryn. What will have concerned him will be the lack of dominance in the scrum and the form of his tour captain. Warburton is short of game time recently and was largely anonymous throughout the game while his replacement Tipuric imposed himself instantly. I said there was no need to panic for other players, but the captain is the one player that Gatland will feel under pressure to select, so a good performance would have been welcomed.
With the opener out of the way attention turns to games against the Super Rugby teams. Tomorrow will see an entirely different starting Lions team face the Auckland Blues. The Blues are the lowest ranked NZ Super rugby team and already eliminated from the playoffs. However, this means this is their biggest game for the remainder of the season and coach Tana Umaga has named a number of All Blacks in his team including James Parsons, Charlie Faumuina, Steven Luatua, Rieko Ioane, George Moala and Sonny-Bill Williams. They will all have something to prove to All Blacks coach Steve Hansen.
The Blues present a major step up in level of opponent for the Lions and another underwhelming performance will see a loss recorded. From the Lions’ perspective the hope will be that with jet lag out of the way, the first game jitters gone and a further week together that they will deliver on their potential and deliver a better performance and a victory. They had better deliver, because looming over the horizon is Saturday’s match against the table topping Crusaders in what has been dubbed the unofficial fourth test.
The tour is here, the preliminaries are out of the way, time for business.
