Lions go to the air to stifle the Crusaders
It may not be pretty but it’s now clear the tourists are going to play a physical game, writes Mark Reason.
OPINION: The British and Irish Lions have called in the airstrike.
They can’t score tries and have now managed a feeble total of two in their opening three games. But they can kick and chase. It may look more like Aussie Rules than rugby, but New Zealand can expect a great deal more. The home sides had better man the ack ack guns because the Lions bombardment will keep on raining down out of the lights.
Call it Warrenball, call it Gattacka, call it what you like, the Lions are going to play a physical game. There is no use pretending any more. They cannot hope to match New Zealand teams in terms of their passing and their fundamental ball skills. But they can hope to take them on in some of the darker areas. It’s not pretty, but the Lions fans have started singing after the 12-3 win against the Crusaders in Christchurch last night.
There was also the first significant victory for coach Warren Gatland. He had complained after the Blues match that the officials didn’t seem to want to see a scrummage and were happy to let anything go so long as the ball was at the No8’s feet. Mathieu Raynal was having none of it. He refereed like a Frenchman.
He did not allow the Crusaders to push early. He did not allow them to drop a knee. The home side did have one magnificent scrummage when they shoved the Lions back off the ball and Codie Taylor got in everyone’s face. But Raynal was suspicious. The next time it happened, Raynal pinged Joe Moody, the Crusaders loosehead, for angling in.
There were several victories for the Lions. They did a number on the Crusaders’ lineout in the first half and that will be a concern. Dane Coles crumbled when Ireland put the All Blacks lineout under pressure. And Taylor’s throwing also wobbled when the Lions came after the vaunted Crusaders.
Sam Whitelock was so concerned at one point that he went into a conference that looked likely to last longer than Yalta. The Crusaders still had the bottle to go for a lineout rather than take the points – and Richie Mo’unga’s brilliant line kicking off penalties has been a big part of his team’s success this season – but the Lions repulsed them.
The other huge step forward was the direction that Owen Farrell brought to the team at 10. He only played there for 30 minutes, because head injuries to Stuart Hogg and Jonathan Davies forced a reshuffle of the Lions backline, but his kicking and aggressive organisation were hugely influential.
Farrell even showed the value of great kick-offs, twice making a fool of Luke Romano and his lifters. It gave the Lions two prime attacking positions but on both occasions they made a mess of them.
Sorry to say but Gatland is going to have to give up on trying too much from these positions. The Lions blew a lineout with an unnecessary move and Davies twice coughed the ball up when there was a chance he was in behind. One occasion was the result of a magnificent hit from Mo’unga.
The accuracy of Conor Murray’s kicking was also a huge positive for the Lions and the coordination of their kick and chase was excellent. They took out the receiver but they also had chasers blocking the offload to the supporting players.
The biggest bother for the Lions was Murray’s passing off his left hand. On three separate occasions in the first half he gave the ball back to the Crusaders with awful passes. It may be a legacy of the shoulder injury Murray suffered towards the end of the Six Nations, but the Lions need to sort it out quickly.
Murray is now probably the best kicking and defensive halfback in the world, but the Lions cannot afford him to pass as poorly as this. On a night when there were so many positives for Gatland, it will probably be his biggest area of concern. That and the extraordinary decision – where was Marius Jonker again – not to award a penalty goal for a ball that passed between the posts.
The mind went back to the moment when Gatland’s Wales suffered a similar controversy against South Africa at the start of the 2011 World Cup.