Itinerary’s flaws obvious on testing night
OPINION: First instinct is to wince a little and worry about what is in store for these British and Irish Lions when they start playing the proper rugby teams on this tour.
As an opening hitout, against the rag-tag Provincial Barbarians in Whangarei last night, this was underwhelming to say the least. Disappointing might be another adjective you would throw at the tourists’ 13-7, one try apiece, victory. It is also worth noting that Clayton McMillan’s Baabaas played their hearts out, and deserve a ton of credit.
But these are the best players in the northern hemisphere that New Zealand’s Warren Gatland has at his disposal. They looked anything but it throughout an excruciatingly difficult encounter to open their 10-match tour.
Somewhere Sir Graham Henry was rubbing his hands, thinking ‘‘I told you so.’’ He of course had tagged this Lions tour itinerary as ‘‘suicidal’’, though not even the great man can have imagined this opening contest providing the degree of difficulty it did for the tourists.
You could say the alarm bells should be sounding, given to come they have New Zealand’s five Super Rugby franchises, the New Zealand Maori and the All Blacks three times. The road is about to get decidedly steeper, starting at Eden Park next Wednesday against Tana Umaga’s Blues.
But then you remind yourself that these tourists only arrived in New Zealand on Wednesday. Three days later they’re running out against a group of mostly young men, and unheralded footballers, ready to play the rugby game of their lives.
They must have still been jetlagged. They were certainly rusty. They’d just flown halfway round the world. No professional sporting team should take on a match in these circumstances. It’s madness, even if the opponents were supposedly lined up to provide an appropriately lightweight challenge.
Only problem was no one gave the Barbarians that memo.
Better is to come assuredly from these Lions. But it will need to be if they’re to win even a match on this tour. Their scrum lacked its usual power. Their attack was ordinary. Their driving forward play practically non-existent.
If the Lions intended to impress with their opening salvos on this tour, they went the wrong way about it through the first 40 minutes at a jam-packed Toll Stadium in the slightly wintry north. At least the rain had abated in plenty of time to ensure a surprisingly user-friendly surface.
There was plenty of intent from the visitors early on, just not enough in the way of accuracy and ability to unlock the fabulous defence of this Barbarians outfit. On multiple occasions the men in red were held up over the goal-line, and not even the numerous fivemetre scrums served up to the huge visiting pack yielded anything in the way of a productive outcome.
Gatland’s men huffed and puffed, and they bashed and they crashed, but they could not break down the impenetrable wall that was the Barbarians’ defence. The locals loved it. The unfashionable provincial misfits were giving the boys from the big cities of the north all kinds of fits.
At the other end the Barbarians gave it the kitchen sink. They attacked at every chance, and did so with such gusto and gumption they could well have had more than the single try they managed in a stirring first-half effort. Yes, after 40 minutes it was the cobbledtogether mixture of part-timers, aspiring young pros and Super Rugby journeymen running round in the Baabaas jerseys who had scored the only try of the match, for a stunning 7-3 lead.
This was not how the script was written. Certainly not how the oddsmakers saw it.
This was the mouse turning the tables on the Lion. The minnows attempting to swallow the whale.
It was appropriate, too, that the Baabaa’s first-half score, to skipper Sam Anderson-Heather, came via an attacking bomb inside the 22, delivered by none other than Bryn Gatland who was just delighted to show dad up in the stands how much he had improved.
It was an old school score to open the last of the old-style tours. Perfect, really.
It got better in the second 40 for the Lions, but only marginally so. They scored just a single try themselves, and got their noses in front. But no more. At the end it was all they could do to hold the Baabaas out in their search for a matchwinning score.
This was no early flexing of the muscles from the Lions. No first-up show of intent. No stirring indication of what is to come.
If you’re part of the invading red army of fans about to swamp this country, it was just a major concern. SUPER RUGBY ROUND 15 Friday, Jun 9 Hurricanes v Chiefs, Westpac Stadium, 7.35pm LIONS TOUR OF NZ Wednesday, Jun 7 Blues v British and Irish Lions, Eden Park, 7.35pm Saturday, Jun 10 Crusaders v British and Irish Lions, AMI Stadium, 7.35pm NRL ROUND 14 Thursday, Jun 8 Sharks v Storm, Southern Cross Group Stadium, 9.50pm