Bench strength crucial for Lions
Lions team must win the last 20 minutes to be successful in New Zealand. Mark Reason writes.
Steve Hansen likes to bang on about the team of 23, but the Lions will need a team of about 50 if they are to have any chance of beating the All Blacks next year. And no, I am not referring back to the crazy cast of 44 players that Clive Woodward took in 2005, but to the number of coaches and injury replacements the Lions will need for one of the most attritional tours in their history.
The Lions won’t beat New Zealand by playing too much rugby. They can only win with brute force and intelligence. They have to smash the All Blacks in all the collision areas, they have to work the referees (French, according to their preference) and they either have to kick the ball long, very long or straight out so that they can contest the lineouts.
The recent summer tours have shown that the Lions should be competitive so long as they meet bench with bench. You have to win the last 20 minutes against New Zealand, as Australia were able to do a couple of times under Michael Cheika.
That means picking impact players on the bench. That means playing smash-mouth rugby. That means telling players they are playing full-out for a 50-minute game and then bringing on the likes of the Vunipola brothers, Manu Tuilagi and some more huge English locks, otherwise known as ‘‘white orcs on steroids’’ – as the fiercesome England forward pack of 2003 was tagged.
Due to the ludicrous schedule that involves playing three tests against the All Blacks and matches against all five Super Rugby teams and the Maori in the space of a month, the Lions will be a touring casualty ward. They will have to play ‘‘Warrenball’’, and with such a packed schedule of intense games after a long domestic season, there will be blood.
So on that note, when Steve Tew whinges about the global schedule, you want to sit him in front of a mirror for 31 days. When Steve Hansen says ‘‘until we get the global season sorted, that’s the sort of stuff we have to put up with’’, because his blokes have played three tests in four weeks in the middle of a Super Rugby season, you want to strap him to the scrummage machine while the Lions are here.
When it comes to player welfare, New Zealand Rugby has absolutely stuffed the Lions. And when it comes to supporter welfare, it has absolutely stuffed the fans. Announcing ticket prices of $149-$449 in the week when the pound has crashed to an all-time low against the Kiwi dollar is shameful.
The Lions will need long necks and cool heads if they are to survive that sort of collective ‘‘shit storm’’ as Hansen memorably described the 24-22 victory over Ireland a couple of seasons ago. And I also suspect they will need a team of Kiwi coaches who know what is coming.
My hunch is that Warren Gatland has coached his last match for Wales and is planning his return to New Zealand via next year’s Lions tour. Having already taken a squad to Australia four years ago, Gatland knows now something of the ethos of the Lions. He knows that players have to room together, the coaches have to work together and there has to be competition for places.
With Eddie Jones unavailable, the dream team is for Joe Schmidt to come as attack coach, Vern Cotter to come as forwards coach, a job that the former No 8 previously did at the Crusaders, and for Paul Gustard, of England and the Saracens, to come as defence coach, with Neil Jenkins again on kicking.
Schmidt is, of course, still a contender for the head coach’s role, a position to be announced shortly. But can this admirable man, a workaholic, give it his heart and soul while having to also cope with the illness of his son Luke. It might just be too big an ask.
Manager John Spencer has said: ‘‘Our sole objective is to win. There is no alternative.’’
I am sure New Zealand readers can think of plenty of alternatives with which to enlighten Spencer, particularly as I suspect the All Blacks are likely to have a hugely strengthened midfield of SBW and Charlie Ngatai in 2017, with Rieko Ioane as an impact player.
It will be a brutal challenge. England coach Eddie Jones was quite right when he said: ‘‘If you picked a World XV now, we haven’t got them. It doesn’t just happen . . . it takes years to develop a world-class player.’’
That was part of a psychological boot up the rump of his squad. Being English, they might just have thought the days of empire are back after winning a test series against an under-strength Australia. Think again.
The stuff England played in the past few weeks won’t be anything like good enough to beat the All Blacks next year. But it is a start, it is something for the Lions coaches to build a team around. Forward power, goal-kicking and fast line speed will be crucial to their chances next year.
The Lions have to win the collision areas. Like England, they should go to six forwards on the bench, and just keep on coming. You have to squeeze New Zealand, take away their time. That can lead to interceptions, crucial to England’s victory in 2012 and Ireland’s narrow defeat a year later.
But it will come at a cost, financially to the fans and physically to the players. It is the tour from hell that will demand we see sense and create a global season. Ah, now I understand Tew’s cunning plan.