Gatland ‘couldn’t give a toss’ at jibes

This is one of those occasions where you step back and let the interview subject say their piece.

‘‘I think there’s a lot of people around the country and around the world that don’t back our forward pack and don’t back our tight five and hopefully we showed we’re good enough tonight,’’ Hurricanes lock Mark Abbott said after Tuesday’s 31-31 draw with the British and Irish Lions at Westpac Stadium.

Abbott’s own 80-minute performance was exceptional, having not played since May 28 due to concussion symptoms.

Prop Jeff To’omaga-Allen, with one All Blacks cap against Japan, is the only member of the Hurricanes’ tight five to play test rugby, so the Lions’ grunt and setpiece prowess represented a significant step up.

‘‘Absolutely. You measure yourself against the best and they’re the most physical pack you’re probably going to find and going into this game we knew we had to assert ourselves to give our backs a chance, to give the rest of the team a chance.’’ Abbott said.

‘‘If we’d taken a backward step, if we’d folded under the challenge, then it would’ve been a different scoreline today.

‘‘Hopefully, as a tight five, we’ve gained a bit of confidence out of that and we know what we’re capable of. We just need to bring that week in, week out.’’

The Hurricanes’ scrum was very good and probably dictated terms, while the lineout functioned as well as any New Zealand team’s has on this tour. That includes the All Blacks in the first test, who had the odd throw go astray.

Yet, if someone was asked to nominate an obvious weakness in the Hurricanes, there’s only one place they’d point.

‘‘It’s hard to break a perception,’’ Abbott said.

‘‘You can go great for three years and have one bad game and everyone says you’ve got a soft underbelly. That’s their opinion; we know what we’re about within the team and, to a man, we only really care about how each other judges each other.’’

From 23-7 up at halftime and then 31-17, a draw was as good as a loss for the Lions. For Abbott and the Hurricanes the whole thing was rather different.

‘‘It was awesome, a hell of a spectacle. One of those life experiences you never forget, I reckon.’’ After a handful of weeks on the sideline, Abbott was feeling it near the end. But, as the Hurricanes pushed hard to claim a late win, the cramp and burning lungs were worth it.

‘‘It was one of those times in the game when everyone was up and yelling and screaming and it was really intense and you just really wanted to be a part of it.’’ New Zealand-born Lions coach Warren Gatland says a newspaper cartoon portraying him as a clown is part of a series of personal attacks, about which he ‘‘couldn’t give a toss’’.

Asked about the New Zealand Herald cartoon which ran on Tuesday — akin to the one that lampooned Australian coach Michael Cheika — Gatland looked bemused and asked what it was in reference to.

‘‘I haven’t seen it, which newspaper was that?’’ he said.

Told it related to his allegations Lions halfback Conor Murray had risked career-ending injury from All Black tackles aimed at his standing leg after a box kick, Gatland shrugged it off.

Gatland on Sunday highlighted All Blacks pinpointing Murray in the 30-15 loss at Eden Park on Saturday.

Blindside loosie Jerome Kaino got Murray after he’d kicked in the 10th minute, then the halfback hurt a wrist after Brodie Retallick gave him a shunt.

In a radio interview All Blacks coach Steve Hansen had called Gatland ’’a bit desperate’’.

After his side drew 31-31 with the Hurricanes in Wellington on Tuesday night, Gatland said he was simply relaying what the referees had told him.

‘‘The stuff about Conor Murray was raised to me by the referees, who had seen those incidents,’’ Gatland said.

‘‘They were aware of it and were just making sure as a 9 he was protected. I just felt that one situation of diving at his legs was a little bit dangerous, it wasn’t something I was hugely complaining about.’’

And as for Hansen’s retaliation? As with the cartoon, he wasn’t deeply aware of it.

‘‘The only thing I heard was that he rang up a radio station, so I thought that was quite unusual for an international coach to ring up a radio station,’’ he said.

‘‘I’m just worried about us. I’m not worried about what Steve Hansen is saying or what any newspaper is drawing me up as. I hope it was a happy clown, that’s all.’’

But he admitted there were disappointing aspects to his homecoming as a Lions coach seeking the first test series win over the All Blacks in 46 years.

‘‘As a Kiwi you’d like to think you’d come home and things would be a little bit more positive from one or two members of the media but that hasn’t happened so you can’t let that get to you. You’ve got to take that on the chin and not be affected by it,’’ said the veteran of 140 games for Waikato.

‘‘There’s obviously been one or two people who’ve had a campaign against me personally, but it’s kind of like water off a duck’s back.’’