Gatland plays mix and match
Lions coach Warren Gatland wants to keep the All Blacks guessing. Whether that will worry Steve Hansen and co is a different story.
It was widely assumed the Lions would roll out their firstchoice side to take on the New Zealand Maori in Rotorua tomorrow, but Gatland ended up springing a couple of surprises in the side he named yesterday.
There are 11 players who started in the win over the Crusaders last weekend, but the bench roles for tour captain Sam Warburton - with the reins handed to Peter O’mahony - and Owen Farrell, and the omission of Alun Wyn Jones were notable eyebrow raisers, with Gatland still keen to keep a few guessing.
‘‘There’s a little bit of juggling going on at the moment, a bit of mixing and matching,’’ Gatland said.
‘‘We’ve got some players who have played quite a bit and we wanted to also have a look at a couple of other combinations.
‘‘Even though it’s a strong side we’ve got to make sure we’re not fully showing our hand. We’re keeping some combinations back and we need to keep the All Blacks guessing a bit about what the final squad is going to be.’’
Irish flanker O’mahony will be the fourth captain in five matches on tour.
Warburton got better in the second half against the Highlanders on Tuesday, but still looked short of a gallop on his return from injury. The jury is out as to whether he will lead the side at Eden Park next Saturday.
‘‘I thought he was good for a long period in the game,’’ Gatland said of Warburton’s effort in Dunedin. ‘‘He had a bit of puff, he hadn’t
played a lot of rugby. And Sean O’brien hasn’t had a lot of rugby either. They’ll get game time between them.
‘‘He’s [Warburton] well aware of the competition that’s there at the moment. He fully understands that that loose forward trio went outstandingly well against the Crusaders. One of the reasons that we selected him as captain of the squad is that because he’s an absolutely quality player, but also that this tour isn’t Sam Warburton, it’s about putting the squad first. So if he’s not involved in the first test because of the performance on Saturday night, he will fully understand that.’’
In terms of the bench role for Farrell - who was so instrumental at first five-eighth against the Crusaders - Gatland wanted to see more from Johnny Sexton.
‘‘Johnny needs some more rugby. I thought he was really good coming off the bench the other day [against the Crusaders] and the combination with 10 and [Farrell at] 12 was pretty seamless. And Johnny knows that probably his last two games before that weren’t his best games of rugby for Leinster in that semifinal and the first game against the Barbarians. So he was just down a little bit on confidence, and he’s got a bit of his mojo back at the moment.’’