There’s every chance I won’t start the first Test...
Warburton is facing the biggest challenge of his career but he is buzzing
TRY telling Sam Warburton he’s about to embark on rugby’s mission impossible. Recently installed as Lions captain for a second successive tour, the 28-year-old has 74 Wales caps to his name, the respect of his team-mates and castiron confidence in the tourists’ potential to claim a first series victory over the All Blacks since 1971.
A knee injury sustained playing for Cardiff against Ulster in April has hampered his preparation but Warburton is fighting fit and ready for what lies in store. History beckons, and he wants a part of it.
Four years after leading them to a series victory over Australia, the 6ft 2in, 16st 4lb flanker will become only the third man after Willie John McBride and Martin Johnson to captain the Lions in successive series when they take on the world champions next month.
The odds may be stacked against them, but with Ireland turning the form book on its head in Chicago last year and England doing likewise under Stuart Lancaster in 2012, the Lions captain is defiant when asked if the all-conquering All Blacks can be beaten.
‘You ask the Irish boys that question and they laugh because they’ve done it in the last 12 months,’ the 28-year-old suggested.
‘England beat them in 2012 and a lot of our boys were in that team. Andy Farrell [Lions defence coach] has coached two separate teams to beat them and Warren Gatland is from there.
‘I never look at history. It’s sport. You have two teams going out there and it’s a level playing field. New Zealanders never go away from home and think about home advantage or away disadvantage. They go and play. That’s how I think.’
Warburton feels he is in a better place to lead now than in Australia last time around.
‘I’m a lot more assured in myself than I was four years ago,’ he said.
‘I found it quite daunting in 2013. It was my first tour and everything was brand new. There were guys who were 10 years older than me.
‘I remember doing my first team talk and looking around seeing guys like Paul O’Connell in the huddle and thinking ‘this is not right me geeing up these boys for a game’. That was very strange.’
‘This time around there’s not that gap. I’m one of the more experienced guys there now.
‘I’m a lot more confident about myself than I was four years ago. That makes it a lot easier to make that transition. A lot of the players and back room staff are familiar and, as captain, it feels like a much easier situation.’
Warburton – with an English father and English-born mother – is more than comfortable with the blend of nations making up Warren Gatland’s squad. The open hostility other countries feel towards England is lost on a man seemingly born to unite the home unions.
‘It’s good to have the English boys around because they’ve had so much success it’s going to rub off on everyone else. Their confidence around training and in the environment and their winning mentality is going to rub off on everybody else.
‘My dad was born in London, grew up there and in Birmingham for a bit and then came back home. He came back to Wales which is where I call my home. But my dad’s family is all based up in Birmingham and Lancashire. That’s where the Warburton comes from.
‘Mum was born in Somerset but both her parents are Welsh so she considers herself Welsh. I consider myself a split down the middle. It would be disrespectful to my father to ignore his English roots.
‘My mum’s maiden name is Kennedy and she says four or five generations back that name comes from Scotland. So when I play for the Lions I tick the box of three out of the four countries.’
While one of Warburton and Gatland’s biggest jobs will be to unite four nations under one flag, sometimes factionalism on national grounds is inevitable.
Four years ago the Lions’ victory in the final Test, which Warburton missed with injury, was overshadowed in part by the public outcry over Gatland’s decision to drop the iconic Brian O’Driscoll in favour of Wales centre Jamie Roberts.
The Lions went on to win the Test 41-16 - and the series 2-1 – but Gatland was clearly stung by the fierce criticism he received in the days leading into it.
‘I was surprised when I heard the squad for the third Test,’ Warburton recalled. ‘I just presumed Brian was going to be captain and it would be his final swansong and dream ending to one of the greatest Lions.
‘It surprised me but Warren leaving him out was nothing personal. It just came down to game plan. He wanted the biggest, meanest team he could possibly pick. That’s what he went with. And it worked.
‘A lot of Irish fans were gutted by that but Brian was the ultimate professional when he was given the news. He still had a full part to play in helping the guys get ready and I’m sure his influence had a massive bearing on the result of the third Test.
‘Players know those risks when they go into Lions tours,’ he said.
‘I know myself there’s every chance I won’t start that first Test. You know that could happen and that drives you on to try to do as well as you can early on the tour.’
Can he seriously envisage a scenario where he does not play in the first Test?
‘I’m the Lions tour captain and if I’m not playing well enough…I’d be disappointed if I knew I was not playing well enough and I’m in that starting team. I know as a player, and Warren knows this, I’d be ready to take that difficult situation away from him by saying “I know I’m not playing well enough to start this Test”. If that’s how I feel then that’s what I’ll say.
‘If I feel I deserve to play I will say that and if I feel I don’t deserve to play then I’ll say the same thing. Warren knows that.’
With hulking centres Robbie Henshaw and Ben Te’o both selected, everything is pointing towards Gatland sticking to his tried and trusted method of preferring brawn and power to silky artistry.
‘I think the Lions want to play to their strengths and that [power] will be on of their strengths, definitely,’ Warburton said.’
‘There are always electric players you can pick in the backline who can change a moment in that game. England have got those players, so have Ireland and Wales. Stuart Hogg. You need that excitement as well. The core of the group is going to be a pretty big, physical bunch. With the core of players from England, they’ve dominated the last two years on that game plan. We’d be silly not to use it.’
However the Lions play, the odds were heavily stacked against them winning the series long before Billy Vunipola — a cast-iron certainty to start the Tests at No8 — was ruled out with a shoulder injury.
Try telling that to Warburton. The Lions captain is on a mission, and he does not intend to fail.
For the Third Test, I just presumed Brian was going to be captain