KIWIS GET A KICKING
Fantastic Farrell puts boot into Crusaders Gatland: NZ media targeted me personally HASKELL TO SHOW METAL ON RETURN TO DUNEDIN
RUGBY UNION: CRUSADERS 3 ‘People wrote the tour off after two games, they said it was over’
JAMES HASKELL will set alarm bells ringing when he returns to his old Kiwi stomping ground with the Lions today.
The England flanker spent a season in Dunedin playing for the Highlanders – the team he plays AGAINST on Tuesday.
And he returns to the southerly city, setting off
Victory over New Zealand’s top franchise team put the tour firmly back on track following a patchy win over a bunch of part-timers and defeat to the Blues.
It also gave Gatland a platform from which to let rip at the coaches, former players and local media, who had kicked him when his team were down.
“It’s been very tough this week, there’s been a lot of criticism,” said the Lions boss. “People wrote the tour off after two games, they said it was over.
“I even heard someone say it was more embarrassing airport detectors after having four staples stuck in his head on his Lions debut.
“I was a bit upset that someone dropped an elbow on me in the warm-up and I needed four actual staples in my head – before the game had started,” said the England flanker.
“When the doc said he was going to staple my head, I than the 2005 tour here [when the Lions lost the series 3-0].
“I have been hammered by the New Zealand media as well, so it has been a targeted campaign against me personally.
“But that is part of coaching at the highest level. thought it was just a euphemism for stitching it, but, no, he actually got a stapler out. It was a bit of a shock.”
Haskell, 32, can’t wait to get back to Dunedin, having loved his time there in 2012.
“The Highlanders was an amazing experience and it’s a time in my life I look back on really fondly,” he said. “I was You have got to be able to handle that sort of thing and that sort of pressure and sometimes that brings out the best in me as a competitor.”
If that last utterance sounded a lot like a warning to the locals that continuing to take pot shots could hurt the All really welcomed down there. I threw myself into the culture with diving, fishing and shooting and boxing, whatever it was.
“When guys go as far as Europe, some can’t handle it because they miss their mums or couldn’t find gravy. That’s a true story.
“I just think, if you’re able to, you should 100 per cent do it.” Blacks’ cause, Gatland is happy for that perception to take hold.
For, finally yesterday, on a cold evening at AMI Stadium, he saw sufficient quality from his players to convince him that they are not chasing a lost cause.
The Lions shut out a Crusaders team which leads the Super Rugby standings with 14 wins from 14 and averages 37 points per game this season.
It was a triumph for the Farrell family in particular, with fly-half Owen kicking all the points and looking a million dollars in everything he did – and dad Andy no less influential as the coach responsible