Lions cannot win without big Billy, the world’s best
When the England No 8 said he was withdrawing from the tour Gatland’s heart must have sank.
The Lions are fatally wounded. Billy Vunipola is the best ball-carrying number eight in the world, just the man to spear head the game of physical domination that Warren Gatland likes to play. Vunipola’s withdrawal from the tour is both a catastrophic loss and a dark omen
When you look back at all the recent failures of the Lions in New Zealand, it is striking how often the fate of the number eight has represented the beginning of the end. At times like now it must seem as if the position is almost cursed.
In the previous 18 months Vunipola has gone from a player with unfulfilled potential to the player he could be. England coach Eddie Jones takes a huge amount of credit. He has got Vunipola fitter. He has given him responsibility. He has got him to step the first man. He has expanded his game to play off the 10.
In the European final we saw just how magnificent a player Vunipola now is. He was the man of the match and the rest were a distant second. At some of Saracens’ lineouts Vunipola played the halfback position causing havoc in the minds of the Clermont defence. Did they defend Billy, or the man running off his shoulder or the lineout drive or the midfield?
The difficulty that Vunipola poses the defence is not only can he sidestep almost noiselessly or run over the top of you, he also has great hands. So the defence has to be incredibly precise because the accuracy and crispness of Vunipola’s pass off either hand will also find the hole. Few New zealand centres pass so well.
A grinning Jones said a few months ago, ‘‘I’ve read all the articles about him being too slow to play number eight. He’s doing a pretty good job as a slow number eight. He was outstanding, carrying, his defence work. He can be the best number eight in the world, I’ve no doubt about that.’’
Anyone who loves rugby was relishing the prospect of Kieran Read against Vunipola. Troubled with injury and concussion, Read has not been quite the player he was three years ago when he ruled the world. In the past 12 months Vunipola had become the more influential player.
And then suddenly he had withdrawn from the tour. Will Greenwood, the former Lions second five, said, ‘‘You start to remove the best of the best and you just start to impact your ability to compete at the highest level against the best team in the world.’’
The mind went back to 1977. My father wrote in his book of that tour that Mervyn Davies ‘‘was at the peak of his rugby career and his play at number eight was unsurpassed in the world...his loss to the 1977 Lions was irreparable.’’
Davies had been playing in a club match for Swansea when he suffered a brain haemhorrage. It ended Davies’ rugby career and it just about ended the Lions’ hopes in New Zealand. Davies had almost single-handedly beaten a brutal French pack a month earlier as he led Wales to the Grand Slam. He was that mighty a player.
The week after Saracens had won this year’s European final, they played in an English league semifinal
Troubled with injury and concussion, Read has not been quite the player he was three years ago when he ruled the world. In the past 12 months Vunipola had become the more influential player.
against the Exeter Chiefs. Somehow the Chiefs won with the last play of the day, and somehow Thomas Waldrom was given the man of the match, although he had the good grace to look sheepish. There was again no doubt that Vunipola was the most influential player on the pitch.
On one occasion in the first half an increasingly dominant Exeter scrum had a position just 5 metres out. They got on a slight nudge, their halfback blocked off the Saracens 9 and Waldrom, sometimes known as the tank, was halfway to the line with a gale at his back when Vunipola stopped him dead in his tracks. It was a moment of utter domination.
It could have seemed prophetic at the time. A New Zealander wearing all black, if you could ignore the dozens of grubby commercial logos on Exter’s jerseys, had just been monstered. Instead Vunipola, his right arm dangling limply, needed treatment in the second half when we saw the metres of tape holding his shoulder together. They wrapped a few more lengths around him and the men in black went on to win.
The next day Vunipola withdrew from the Lions. Gatland said, ‘‘I spoke to Billy and he just felt he couldn’t give us 100 per cent. It was popping out during games and being strapped. I did try to persuade him to come over and be assessed and look at managing him but he was adamant that he was not right.’’
It is a crying shame for the Lions and for New Zealanders who want to see the best playing each other. It is an indictment of Saracens who have pushed Vunipola too far at the expense of the Lions and now selfishly want him repaired. It is an indictment of the greedy English Premiership bastard owners who recently pushed for an 11 months season, causing player revolt. It is an indictment of modern rugby which involves far too much bash.
And perhaps it is also an indictment of Vunipola. You feel he may not properly ‘get’ the Lions. You feel his loyalties are with Saracens who he calls ‘‘such an amazing bunch of guys.’’ By not even flying to Ireland to let the Lions medical staff assess him, Vunipola has shown the Lions unfortunate disrespect.
He has also left the tour as damaged as his own shoulder. Sadly the Lions are used to such shadows falling across the back of their scrum. In 1983 the shadow was Murray Mexted who towered above Iain Paxton as a player.
In 1993 the Australian referee Brian Kinsey made a hash of the first test which culminated in a ludicrous decision against number eight Dean Richards in the final minute which allowed Grant Fox to kick the winning goal. Kinsey will always be welcome in New Zealand.
The number eight curse surfaced again in 2005 when Lawrence Dallaglio broke his ankle in the Lions’ first match in New Zealand. Dallaglio’s potential replacement, Simon Taylor, pulled a hamstring early on in the tour and never played a match - a bit like the Lions, some might say, certainly as far as the tests were concerned.
So when Gatland mumbles that injuries are all part of a Lions tour and they can move on without Vunipola, don’t you believe it. This is a savage loss. The Lions are now odds on with the bookies to lose the series 3-0. That may be harsh, but it is probably realistic. The Lions are now a long way behind the 8 ball.