Gats and the g
Few people know Lions coach Warren Gatland better than his old Waika a John Mitchell. He tells Ben Stanley about what will shape the current to o
AMID the sweat-soaked jerseys and boots littering the floor, the post-game mood in the home changing sheds of Hamilton’s Rugby Park must have been one of pure ecstasy on June 29, 1993.
Waikato had done it – they had beaten the touring British and Irish Lions. Not just beaten them either; they’d thrashed ‘em, 38-10. In front of a near-capacity crowd, the Mooloo Boys had run riot.
Leaning against a changing room wall, captain John Mitchell surveyed the scene. He saw the courageous flanker Duane Monkley; the versatile fullback Matt Cooper; hard-charging lock Brent Anderson – and industrious hooker Warren Gatland.
The skipper’s eyes then set on a 22-year-old Hamilton Old Boys centre, whose father John was an All Black in the 1960s.
‘‘There was this young midfielder for us – Aaron Collins,’’ Mitchell told the Sunday StarTimes from his home in South Africa, where he has just been appointed as the Bulls’ director or rugby.
‘‘He was on debut, I think. I still remember him sitting in the team room afterwards and later on that evening. I still remember looking at the face of that young guy – I don’t think he could believe that he’d just played against the British Lions.’’
Not Collins, Mitchell – or even Gatland – knew at the time, but Waikato had just cemented themselves in the rugby history books forever.
For the first time ever, the upcoming Lions trip to New Zealand in June and July will see the tourists avoid games against provincial unions, instead playing Super Rugby sides in their nonrepresentative clashes.
Despite their three test defeats and loss to the New Zealand Maori, the Lions won all seven provincial games in their 2005 visit.
In 1993, the Lions lost four provincial games during their stay; against Otago (24-37), Auckland (18-23), Hawke’s Bay (16-29) – and finally to Waikato just four days before their final test at Eden Park. That means Waikato will go down as the last Kiwi provincial union to ever beat the Lions.
Mitchell and Gatland have obviously gone on to big things, since. Mitchell famously coached the All Blacks from 2001 to 2003 – and now finds himself back in Super Rugby. Meanwhile Gatland – the Welsh coach since 2007 – will lead the Lions on his second tour this year.
You’d struggle to find many blokes who’ve spent as much time with Gatland, as Mitchell. For Waikato, the pair played nine straight seasons together between 1986 and 1994 – and were both on the paddock when the Mooloos famously took the Ranfurly Shield off Auckland in September 1993.
Yet victory over the Lions – the first and only time Waikato managed to do it – still holds up as a towering achievement for the union.
‘‘From memory, we’d been pretty stop-start at that point in the year,’’ Mitchell says, of the ‘93 clash.
‘‘We hadn’t really had any performances that you could really hang your hat on, but we knew the Lions were coming. We were becoming a bit more of an aging group at that point.
‘‘The player group was quite experienced, so when that time arrived, between the second and third tests, we were highly motivated.’’
At the time, the Waikato side had five test caps amongst them. In the opposite changing sheds, the Lions had 288. That mattered for little when they got on the paddock.
Waikato came out of the gates fast, with winger Doug Wilson scoring after just 49 seconds. Monkley would score two more tries for them before the half-time whistle rang, with Waikato 26-3 ahead. Collins and Gatland both scored the final forty too, as few Lions left the game with much credibility intact.
The challenge ahead of Gatland over the next two months is one vastly different to what he faced at Rugby Park that overcast June afternoon in Hamilton – yet Mitchell is confident his old cobber can confront it.
‘‘Gats is a good rugby man [and] he’s realistic about where he’s coming,’’ Mitchell, who divides his time between the US and South Africa these days, says.
‘‘He’s got experience as well – this is his second Lions tour. As an assistant coach, they were a whisker away in 2009 in South Africa from beating a pretty good Boks side. Clearly they dealt with pressure far greater in Australia.
‘‘His biggest challenge is getting the players out of club rugby and having limited preparation, so I think he’s going to have to use the first month or six weeks pretty cleverly in terms of getting the speed of their game up.
‘‘Clearly tactically, they’ll have some strengths that they’ll use compared to the All Blacks strengths. They won’t try and play entirely like the All Blacks, but they’ll certainly have to have an attacking mindset. They’ll certainly have to be able to ramp up the game and absorb when the New Zealand side ramps it up.’’
Mitchell believes that Gatland’s biggest pre-tour challenges as instilling discipline at the breakdown, and ensuring a supportive team culture for those who don’t play in the tests.
‘‘Clearly the Brits are quite highly emotive in the breakdown, scrum and driving maul,’’ the former All Black coach says.
‘‘That’s when their emotive errors will come. The best discipline will be critical to this series.’’
‘‘[I think] Gats will create a really good culture in the sense he’ll create healthy competition [within the Lions squad]. I think a couple of his challenges will be how non-test players accept not getting selected for the 23 when they’re all test players; how he manages nonselection and the transparency of that, prior to selection.
‘‘That’s where a lot of Lions trips have generally, at times,